
Glass _^Li" 

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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 



SHAKESPEARE 
ON THE STAGE 



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'Clay and clay differs in dignity, 
Whose dust is both alike." 

Cymbelixe. 



SHAKESPEARE 

O N 

THE STAGE 



BY 
WILLIAM WINTER 



"I have told you what I have seen and heard." 

— Shakespeare. 



New York 

MOFFAT, YARD AND COMPANY 

1911 



T^ 



^^^\ 



x^5 



Copyright, 1911, bt 
WILLIAM WINTER 



All Bights Reserved 



Published, December, 1911 



.# : 



1 

>CI.A303579 



To THE Memory of 
AUGUSTIN DALY 

Honoring the Wisdom Devotion Courage 

And Industry Which Made Him the Greatest 

Of American Theatrical Managers 

And Honoring His Signal and Brilliant Services 

To the Cause of Shakespearean Drama in America 

I DEDICATE 

These Studies of Shakespeare on the Stage 



His lot was cast where giant forces met; 

He battled bravely, and he gained his crown: 
Detraction cannot stain nor time forget 

The living splendor of his just renown. 



BRIEF INDEX 



CHAPTER PAGE 

I. "SHAKESPEARE SPELLS RUIN" ... 41 

II. KING RICHARD III.— Historical Comment . 68 

The Text 83 

The First Richard ..... 86 

ClBBER AND HiS VERSION . . . .87 

David Garrick ...... 88 

John Philip Kemble . . . . . 91 

George Frederick Cooke . . . .92 

Edmund Kean ...... 95 

Junius Brutus Booth . . . . 99 

William Charles Macready . . . 101 

Edwin Forrest ...... 103 

John Edward McCullough . . . 105 

Edwin Thomas Boot^ .... 107 

Barry Sullivan ..... 113 

Henry Irving ...... 115 

Various Performers . . . . .116 

Richard Mansfield . . . . .119 

Meaning and Value of the Play . . 121 

III. THE MERCHANT OF VENICE . . .129 

The First Shylock ..... 133 
The Lansdowne Alteration . . . 134 

Macklin to Mansfield .... 135 
The Character of Shylock . . . 137 

Charles Macklin ..... 141 
John Henderson ..... 144 
George Frederick Cooke . . . .145 





10 



BRIEF INDEX 



CHAFTEB 



Edmund Kean ...... 

Junius Brutus Booth. — William Charles 
Macready. — Charles Kean 

Edwin Thomas Booth .... 

Various Performers ..... 

Foreign Actors. — Bandmann. — Dawison. — 
NOVELLI ...... 

Edward Loomis Davenport. — John Edward 
McCuLLouGH. — Lawrence Barrett . 

Character of Shylock 

Henry Irving . 

Richard Mansfield . 

Later Performances. — Augustin Daly's Re- 
vival. — ^SiDNEY Herbert 

Nathaniel Cheever Goodwin 

Edward Hugh Sothern 

Robert Bruce Mantell 

Portia 

Ada Rehan 

Ellen Terry 

Ellen Terry as a Lecturer 

IV. OTHELLO . 

Early Performers 
Careless Investient . 
Barton Booth and Quin 

COLLEY ClBBER IAGO 

WiLKS AND GaRRICK . 

Barry and Henderson 

John Philip Kemble. — Mrs. Siddons 

Edmund Kean . 

Junius Brutus Booth 

Kean and Booth 



PAGE 

147 

150 
153 
159 

161 

167 
171 
174 
197 

200 
206 
208 
210 
211 
213 
217 
222 

232 
235 
238 
240 
243 
244 
246 
248 
250 
255 
258 



BRIEF INDEX 



11 



CHAPTEE 

Macready and Phelps 

Early American Stage 

Edwin Forrest . 

Edwin Thomas Booth . 

Dawison and Booth 

Booth as Iago . 

Booth and Henry Irving 

Edward Loomis Davenport 

John Edward McCullough 

Foreign Actors. — ^Charles Fechter 

TOMMASO SaLVINI 

Ernesto Rossi 

Ermete Novelli 

An Offensive Theory 

Various Mention 

Iago .... 

Time and "Double Time" 

The Power of the Play 

V. HAMLET 

British Stage. — Thomas Betterton 

Costume 

Insanity op Hamlet . 

David Garrick . 

Early Actors. — Kemble 

American Stage. — Edwin Forrest 

Edward Loomis Davenport 

Barry Sullivan 

Edwin Thomas Booth 

Lawrence Barrett 

John Edward McCullough 

Henry Irving 

Wilson Barrett as Young Hamlet 



PAGE 

260 
261 
263 
266 
268 
271 
272 
280 
282 
286 
287 
294. 
297 
306 
310 
312 
315 
317 

320 
321 
323 
325 
328 
329 
333 
336 
337 
339 
351 
352 
354 
363 



12 



BRIEF INDEX 



Edward Smith Willard .... 379 

Herbert Beerbohm-Tree .... 386 

Edward Hugh Sothern .... 388 

Johnston Forbes-Robertson . . . 392 

Foreign Hamlets on the American Stage . 397 

Daniel Edward Bandmann . . . 398 

Bogumil Dawison ..... 400 

Charles Fechter ..... 403 

ToMMASO Salvini . . . . .411 

Ernesto Rossi ...... 417 

Sonnenthal and Barnay .... 420 

Jean Mounet-Sully ..... 424 

Female Hamlets ..... 427 

Sarah Bernhardt — 'Alas, Poor Hamlet!' . 431 



VI. MACBETH.— Historical Comment . 
The Play and the Character 
Early Productions. — Thomas Betterton 
David Garrick and Hannah Pritchard 
Garrick's Contemporaries 
John Philip Kemble . 



Supernatural Atmosphere 
American Stage 
Edwin Forrest . 
Edwin Thomas Booth 
Henry Irving 
Tommaso Salvini 
Various Mention 
Robert Bruce Mantell 
Lauy Macbeth . 
Charlotte Cushman . 
Various Performers . 
The Spiritual Element 



-Edmund 



Kean 



443 
452 
453 
455 
458 
460 
464 
473 
474 
477 
480 
486 
489 
493 
499 
500 
506 
514 



BRIEF INDEX 13 

CHAPTER PAGE 

VII. KING HENRY VIIL— Historical Comment . 516 

Costume ....... 520 

The Play 523 

British Stage. — King Henry . . . 531 

British Stage. — Cardinal Wolsey . . 533 

American Stage ..... 637 

Kean. — Creswick. — Vandenhoff. — Booth . 540 

Henry Irving ...... 545 

Buckingham and Gardiner .... 548 

British Stage. — Queen Katharine . . 550 

Sarah Siddons ...... 552 

American Stage.— ^r^^'.v Katharine. — Char- 
lotte Cushman ..... 554 

Various Performers ..... 558 

Helena Modjeska. — Ellen Terry . . 561 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



Macklin, Garrick, Kemble, 

Kean, Macready, Irving; 

William Shakespeare, After the Stratford Bust, y Frontispiece 
Forrest, Booth, Barrett, I 

Mansfield, Mantell, Sothern. J 



TO FACE 
PAGE 



King Richard III. 

Richard the Third, King of England, .... 80 

After the Painting on Board at Kensington Palace. 
David Garrick as King Richard the Third, . . 88 

After the Painting hy William Hogarth. 
Edmund Kean as King Richard the Third, ... 96 

From a Mezzotint. 
Junius Brutus Booth as King Richard the Third, . 104 

After the Drawing formerly owned hy Edwin Booth. 
Edwin Booth as The Duke of GWster, . . . .112 

After the Portrait in Oil hy Jarvis McEntee. 
Richard Mansfield as The Duke of Glo'ster, . . .120 

From a Photograph by Pach Bros. 



The Merchant of Venice. 
William Charles Macready, 

From an Old Print. 
Edwin Forrest, 

From a Photograph hy Brady. 

15 



as Shylock, . 146 



16 ILLUSTRATIONS 



TO PACE 
PAGE 



-as Portia, . 214 



Edwin Booth as Shylock, 158 

From the Draxving hy W. J. Hennessey. 
Henry Irving as Shylock, 180 

From a Photograph by Lock and Whitfield. 
Richard Mansfield as Shylock, 198 

From a Painting by Edgar Cameron. 
Ada Rehan, 

From a Photograph by Marceau. 
Helena Modjeska, 

From a Photograph by Sarony. 
Ellen Terry as Portia, 222 

From a Photograph by Window and Grove, London. 

Othello. , 

Edwin Forrest as Othello, 260 

From a Photograph by Brady. 
Edwin Booth as lago, 270 

From a Photograph by Sarony. 
John McCullough as Othello, 284' 

From a Crayon Drawing. 
Tommaso Salvini as Othello, 294 

From a Photograph by Lock and Whitfield, London. 
Ermete Novelli as Othello, 306 

From a Photograph. 

Hamlet. 

David Garrick as Hamlet, 322 

After the Painting by Benjamin Wilson. 
John Philip Kemble as Hamlet, 330 

After the Painting by Sir Joshua Reynolds. ^ 

Edwin Booth as Hamlet, 346 

From a Photograph by Sarony. 



ILLUSTRATIONS 17 



TO PACE 
PAGE 



y as Hamlet^ . 388 



Henry Irving as Hamlet, 362 

From the Painting hy Sir Edwin Long, A.R.A. 

Edward H. Sothern, 

From a Photograph by Schloss. 

Johnston Forbes-Robertson, 
From a Photograph by 

Lizzie Caswell Smith 

Edwin Forrest, ^ 

From a Photograph by Brady. „ , ^ 

^ o 1 • • ^ las Hamlet, . 410*^ 

lommaso salvini, | 

From a Photograph. J 

Macbeth. 

Edwin Booth as Macbeth, 478 

From a Drawing by W. J. Hennessey. 
Robert Mantell as Macbeth, 494 '^ 

From a Photograph. 
Mrs, Siddons as Lady Macbeth, 504 

After the Painting by G. H. Harlow. 
Charlotte Cushman as Lady Macbeth, .... 508 

From a Photograph. 
Ellen Terry as Lady Macbeth, 514 

From a Photograph by Window and Grove. 

King Henry VIII. 

Samuel Phelps as Cardinal Wolsey 536 

After the Painting by Johnston Forbes-Robertson. 
Henry Irving as Cardinal Wolsey, .... 544 

After the Drawing by J. Bernard Partridge. 
Mrs. Siddons, and John Philip, Charles, and Stephen, 

Kemble, in the Trial Scene, 554 

From the Painting by G. H. Harlow. 



PREFACE. 



This volume attempts accomplishment of a work which I have 
had in contemplation for many years, — a work designed to tell 
the story of the manner in which, from the time of their origin 
till the present day, Shakespeare's Plays have been represented, 
and to name and briefly describe the principal actors who have 
been eminent in the representation of them. In my youth I 
became deeply interested in the Stage and during more than 
fifty years I have been continuously writing about it, celebrating 
its worthy votaries and advocating its advancement. In my 
study of that institution I early learned that sound judgment as 
to Acting in the Present imperatively requires to be informed 
and aided by precise knowledge of Acting in the Past, and for 
the acquirement of that knowledge I read many books, bio- 
graphical and critical, about the actors of old. Those books 
were more or less interesting, but I found that, in general, 
they furnished little specific information as to the methods of 
those performers, — the expedients of their stage business, the 
countless details which, dexterously and suitably combined, 
constitute works of dramatic art. Some knowledge of such 
things could, indeed, be gleaned by industrious investiga- 
tion of authorities scattered far and wide, but a com- 
pendium of instruction relative to those methods was not to 
he fou/nd. I therefore determined to accumulate knowledge 

10 



20 PREFACE 

of stage traditions and to observe with care the methods of 
contemporary actors, particularly in the plays of Shake- 
speare, — which afford the widest arena for the display of the 
actor^s art, — and I entertained the project, should oppor- 
tunity ever occur, of contributing to the chronicles of the 
Theatre such a record as might, in some degree, repair the 
deficiency which I had observed and furnish to other students 
and enthusiasts of the Stage the readily accessible summary 
of which I had felt the want. 

Opportunity has been slow in coming, and many obstacles have 
intervened to compel postponement of the work. One step 
toward the fulfilment of my plan was made more than thirty 
years ago, in the publication of The Edwin Booth Prompt 
Book. In 1877, in conversation with Booth, I mentioned this 
subject, adverting to the difficulty that even the most diligent 
student of Acting encounters wJien trying to ascertain the 
exact method and spirit in which Hamlet and other Shake- 
spearean parts were performed by great representatives of 
dramatic art, from age to age, and upon that conversation 
the project of publishing his Prompt Book eventually ensued. 
Booth's customary repertory, in the maturity of his powers, 
comprised eleven Shakespearean parts and five miscellaneous 
ones: Hamlet, Macbeth, King Lear, Othello, lago, Shylock, 
Wolsey, Brutus, Richard the Third, Benedick, Petruchio, 
Richelieu, Lucius Brutus, Bertuccio, Ruy Bias, and Don 
Ccesar de Bazan. Each of his Prompt Books contains the 
text as preferred and used by him, together with a Preface and 
Notes by me. Those books, of which the publication was 
first accomplished in 1878-79, are now issued by the Penn 
Publishing Company, of Philadelphia. They contain many 
of Booth's stage directions and, in particular, — fulfilling to 



PREFACE 21 

some extent the object sought in my editorial worh on them, 
— they prescribe some of the stage business that he invented 
or employed. They might have contained more of it, and 
they would have done so but that Booth thought a more ex- 
tensive and minute specification of such details would prove 
wearisome, and also, though he was willing that other actors 
should use his acting arrangements of the plays, because he 
was averse to providing them with written specification of all 
his business. The work that I wished to accomplish, however, 
was in that way begun. 

An exhaustive exposition of the manner in which Shake- 
speare's Plays have been acted is impracticable. There is 
no one of them which, if its stage business were fully set down, 
would not require a volume of about W0,000 words, while in 
each of several cases three or four such volumes would be 
required to contain all the materials of narrative, commentary, 
and stage direction that might be assembled, and it is doubt- 
ful whether, if provided, such volumes would be widely read. 
Some consideration of the subject is feasible, and for that I 
believe there will be acceptance. There was a time, indeed, 
not yet distant, when the bestowal of intellectual considera- 
tion on Actors and Acting, especially in America, was often 
designated as unprofitable and absurd. That time is gone, — 
forever. To-day almost every publication, whether news- 
paper or magazine, devotes to those subjects a considerable 
section of every issue, and there is no home or social circle 
in the land that does not, either directly or indirectly, feel 
and respond to the influence of the Theatre. The study of 
Shakespeare is widely and closely pursued. I have had abun- 
dance of the experience of being asked for guidance and help 
in that study. I am therefore persuaded that this work mil 



22 PREFACE 

prove practically useful to all votaries of Acting and lovers 
of the Drama. 

The task I have proposed to myself is one of oppressive 
difficulty: to furnish, with reference to each play that is ex- 
amined, an epitome of illustrative information; to state con- 
cisely such facts of Shakespearean scholarship as are essen- 
tial to spare a reader the trouble of consulting other books 
on the subject while reading this one; to classify and co- 
ordinate a multiplicity of widely scattered, often contradictory 
opinions and records as to actors; to provide original studies, 
in few words, of the Shakespearean characters selected for 
commentary ; to comprehend, define, and describe the spirit of 
diverse embodiments of the same parts, and in each important 
case to indicate the method of performance that was pursued; 
to note essential variations of costume, in the dressing of the 
same parts and plays; to record wherever possible such of 
the stage business of every influential actor named in the story 
of Shakespearean acting as is most illuminative and sug- 
gestive, without lapsing into inventory and becoming weari- 
some; to mention the various ideals and some of the various 
"readings" of many actors, particularly such as have estab- 
lished traditions which are still valid, — and sometimes such 
as have attempted mere fantastic and confusing innovations; 
to show changes that have been wrought, in the lapse of time, 
in methods of stage presentment; and, avoiding repetition 
wherever possible, — though at times a certain similarity is 
inevitable in disquisition on the same part as played by differ- 
ent actors, — to unite facts, theories, traditions, opinions, and 
conjectures into a sequent and interesting narrative. Whether 
in this attempt I have even measurably succeeded I must learn 
from others. I believe that the traditions of Shakespearean 



PREFACE 23 

acting ought to be familiar to every actor and to every 
theatrical auditor, and I know that, whatever may he the 
defects of my book, they have not resulted from any lack 
of care and industry on my part. It now seems certain that, 
within the next few years, a revival of Shakespearean acting 
will be effected on the American Stage: my labor xsMl have 
been indeed well bestowed if it assists in hastening or to any 
extent promoting that revival. 

The selection of Plays considered in this volume may seem 
capricious. Preference might have been given to the chrono- 
logical order in which the Plays of Shakespeare are believed 
to have been written, in which case I must have begun with 
Love's Labor's Lost and proceeded with the Histories. My 
election fell on six plays which, in themselves as well as in 
their stage history, provide abundant elements of variety and 
contrasts Consideration of the commercial interest of my 
Publishers, — whose confidence and liberality make so large an 
investment in the enterprise which I have undertaken, — ap- 
peared to warrant that choice. Except for those considera- 
tions, in planning the Series of works of which this is intended 
to be the first, I should have arranged the Plays for com- 
mentary in the chronological order of their first performance 
in America, which, as to many of them, is here noted: 

King Richard III. . . . New York City, March 5, 1750. 

The Merchant of Venice . Williamsburgh, Va., September 5, 1752. 

Othello . December 26, 1751. 

King Lear January 14, 1754. 

Romeo and Juliet January 28, 1754. 

Hamlet November 24, 1761. 

King Henry IV., Part I December 18, 1761. 

" Part II., February 4, 1822. 

Cymbeline December 28, 1767. 



24 



PREFACE 



Macbeth .... 

King John .... 
As You Like It . . . 
The Meehy Wives of Windsor . 
Julius C-esar .... 
King Henry VIII. . 
coriolanus .... 

The Comedy of Errors . 
Twelfth Night 
King Henry V. . . . 

Measure for Measure 
King Richard II. . 
The Winter's Tale . 
A Midsummer Night's Dream . 
The Two Gentlemen of Verona 
All's Well That Ends Well . 
The Taming of the Shrew 
(Gar rick's version Katharine and Petruchio, was 
first acted in this country. New York City, 



March 3, 1768. 
January 16, 1769. 
July 14, 1786. 
October 5, 1788. 
March 14, 1794. 
May 13, 1799. 
June 3, 1799. 
May 25, 1804. 
June 11, 1804. 
December 17, 1804. 
February 27, 1818. 
February 27, 1819. 
May 5, 1820. 
November 9, 1826. 
October 6, 1846. 
October (3 ?), 1789. 
January 18, 1887. 

April 14, 1768.) 



In many books about the Stage, especially in old ones, 
there is a vexatious negligence of form, clarity, and accuracy, 
causing much loss of time and patience. The searcher of 
such books, if in quest of exact and particular information, 
must often waste hours in seeking for a correct date or the 
full name of an actor or an author or a play, details some- 
times most important, which a contemporary writer might 
have furnished if he had taken the trouble to be thorough 
vn his work. I have had occasion to think with sympathy of 
the exasperated inquiry with which the historian Macaulay 
embellished the margin of many a page, in books that he 
had occasion to consult, containing the ambiguous "It was 
thought" or "It was supposed" or "It was probable" — 
"Why didn't the fool find out!" In this volume the sections 
of the several chapters have been disposed in such a way as 



PREFACE 25 

to make them easy of reference, and no point has been left 
dubious that could be verified. A Brief Index takes the 
place of the customary Table of Contents, showing at a 
glance the divisions and general scope of this work. The 
chapter on Hamlet is the longest, — as must always be the 
case in any work on Shakespeare's Plays. That wise, gentle 
commentator and patient, laborious compiler and editor, 
Horace Howard Furness, uttered only the simple truth when 
he wrote of Hamlet that "upon no throne built by mortal 
hands has ever 'beat so fierce a light' as upon that airy 
fabric reared at Elsinore"; and the fact that in Furness's 
monumental Variorum Edition of Shakespeare two vol- 
umes (in all, 922 large pages of small type!), are devoted to 
that tragedy alone, without exhausting the subject, signifi- 
cantly attests its preponderant importance. In writing about 
Hamlet, the second play ever read by me and the dramatic 
theme which more than any other has engaged my atten- 
tion all my life, I should have preferred to devote the greater 
part of the available space in this book to the two impersona- 
tions of its central character, those of Edwin Booth and 
Henry Irving, which have impressed me as wellnigh perfect. 
The plan of my work enjoined a more comprehensive treat- 
ment of the subject, and while omitting nothing essential to 
the display of those performances, I have particularly de- 
scribed representations of Hamlet less generally known and 
esteemed, — several of which were framed for the avowed pur- 
pose of destructive innovation. If more ample descant on the 
acting of Booth and Irving in the character of Hamlet should 
be desired it will be found in my Life and Art of Edwin 
Booth which, revised and much augmented, will shortly be 
published, uniform with my Life and Art of Richard Mans- 



26 PREFACE 

FIELD, and in my Life and Art of Henry Irving, which 
has been for some time in process of composition and which I 
hope I shall live long enough to complete. 

It is my imtention to continue the history of the manner in 
which Shakespeare's Plays have been represented, making each 
volume of the series that will be required complete in itself, as 
this one is. My Shadows of the Stage, — in Three Series, 
comprising biographies and studies of the acting of many 
players, — have long been out of print: in this book I have 
utilized, in a re-written form, material contained in those works, 
sufficient to make about twenty pages. Articles which are 
fairly described as brief abstracts of six of the chapters in this 
book were published in The Century Magazine, February to 
November, 1911, and the commendation elicited by that publica- 
tion of them makes me hopeful of a favorable reception for this 
one. Like all other writers who venture to treat of Shakes- 
peare's Plays, I am indebted for instruction in the scholarship 
of the subject to the labors of many commentators, from Rowe 
to Furness, but especially to the thorough research, ample 
learning, and sensible commentary of one who, if not the father 
of Shakespeare Scholarship, is certainly its head and front, — 
James Orchard Halliw ell-Phillip ps (1820-1889). For bio- 
graphical information relative to actors I have had recourse to 
innumerable sources, specified in the text wherever necessary, 
ranging from the discursive chronicles and memoranda of 
Downes, Genest, Collier, Dunlap, and Ireland, to fugitive 
copies of old newspapers and magazines, and I have trusted to 
my personal knowledge, — naturally extensive after so many 
years of observation and study, — of dramatists, actors, and 
devotees of the Theatre. I mention these facts because wishful 
to avoid any seeming disregard of the labors of earlier writers. 



PREFACE 27 

Responsibility for the substance of my work, the judgments as 
to plays and characters of Shakespeare and as to the inter- 
pretations of them given by actors, must rest entirely upon 
myself; and, however much my judgments may differ from those 
of other persons, I earnestly hope that, as in every important 
insta/nce the reasons for them are stated, they may prove at 
least usefully suggestive to my readers. 

I would here gratefully acknowledge obligation to my son, 
Mr. Jefferson Winter, for encouragement and for assistance 
in the protracted drudgery of research imperatively essential 
to such a work as this, and also for discriminative and useful 
suggestion, — particularly relative to the play of The Mer- 
chant OF Venice. The wearisome labor that mu^t be done 
by any writer who undertakes to treat the subject of 
Shakespeare on the Stage is not likely to be understood 
by readers. The names of actors mentioned in these chapters, 
for example, are, comparatively, not very numerous, but, in 
order to determine what actors ought to be mentioned, 
and to mention them, correctly, in association with the 
parts selected for comment, I have been obliged to obtain 
and sift biographical and technical information relative to 
about 2,000 performers. 

The illustrations in this volume, although numerous, are yet 
fewer than I could wish them to be : occasion, almost imperative, 
could be found for at least 250 pictures: my Publishers, nat- 
urally, have not deemed it expedient to indulge in such costly 
profusion of pictorial embellishment. In the selection of the 
pictures which are used, an earnest effort has been made to 
provide only such as give a faithful semblance of the actors 
depicted and which are most necessary to graphic illustration 
of the text. There are comparatively few portraits, in dra- 



28 PREFACE 

matic characters, of actors of the remote past which furnish 
authentic impression of the originals, and there are many 
photographs, made in recent years, which are not much better. 
Pictures of some of the old actors display veritable "guys,'* 
such as would be derided from the stage in the present day, — 
and probably would have met with the same treatment a cen- 
tury ago. The close observer of portraiture and of written 
testimony, moreover, will find it difficult, sometimes impossible, 
to reconcile the contrarieties which exist between the printed 
description and the pencilled or painted delineation of players 
of the past, — as, for instance, when considering the picture, 
by J. Boyne, of Charles MacMin as Shylock side by side 
with Lichtenberg's description of the actor's dress and appear- 
ance in that character. Allowance should be made for the 
inferiority of old-time methods of pictorial reproduction, as 
compared with methods now available and sometimes used, but 
the investigator is early forced to reject as valueless many of 
the portraits designated as "old prints." As to some of them, 
indeed, a comment would be appropriate which was made by 
the renowned lawyer and orator Rufus Choate when speaking 
of certain paintings which were involved in a law-suit: "It 
would not be a sin to worship them, — for they bear no likeness 
to anything that is in heaven above, or the earth beneath, or 
the waters under the earth!" Some collectors of "old prints," 
theatrical curiosities, and antique portraits, it would seem, 
habitually indulge in that form of devotion. 

It has not seemed desirable that I should, in this work, 
traverse the much explored ground of manners and customs of 
theatrical representation in Shakespeare's time, specifying the 
names and situations of the several London theatres, the use 
of inn-yards as play-houses, the circumstance of the open 



PREFACE 29 

stage, the ill-effect of the presentment of female characters by 
men or hoys, the general lack of suitable scenery, the admission 
of spectators to the stage itself, and the frequently riotous 
conduct of vulgar audiences. Although the epoch of the 
Miracle Plays and Moralities had passed, the Theatre was then 
in its infancy, and the exhibition of plays was necessarily crude. 
Diffuse treatment of that subject might interest confirmed 
a/ntiquarians, like myself; it would not interest the general 
public, and at best it would only serve to reiterate a truth, 
already known, namely, that in the matter of appropriate scenic 
investiture, such as helps to create and sustavn illusion, the 
modern Theatre, — meaning, here, that of the last sixty years, — 
under capable management, has far excelled, and continues to 
excel, any Theatre of the past, in any country or any other 
period of which there is authentic record. If I could feel 
assured that I have given, within the compass of about lJfO,000 
words, a reasonably comprehensive and satisfactory accoimt 
of influential treatment which has been accorded to six of Shake- 
speare's plays, I should be content. 

In arranging the contents of the various chapters of this 
work I have not adhered to a uniform plan, because the stage 
histories of the several plays considered present differences 
and individual peculiarities making it inexpedient, if not 
impossible, to treat each of them in the same manner. There 
have been female performers of King Richard the Third, Shy- 
lock, Othello, lago, Hamlet, and Cardinal Wolsey, — but those 
performers, except as Hamlet, have not required special exami- 
nation. Although there is, necessarily, some account, often 
minute, of actors who have come to America from the European 
Continental Stage and have here attempted to impersonate 
Shakespearean characters, it is only with regard to Othello and 



30 PREFACE 

Hamlet that their performances could he deemed important 
enough to require separate sections. 

It has seemed to me not only desirable hut imperative that, 
in view of the disproportionate favor and the provincial adula- 
tion which is customarily hestowed on those and on all foreign 
performers who appear in America, a word should here he 
said for English ideals of the characters in English classic 
Drama, for English methods of acting and for the traditions 
and usages of the English Stage, — of which the American 
Stage is the legitimate child, now and for many years past 
bounteously contributive to the maintenance of its parent. 
It has been, and it still is, frequently alleged that actors of the 
European Continental Stage excel English-speaking actors, 
alike in dramatic aptitude and dramatic faculty. The preten- 
sion is not justified. It is true that in the copying of super- 
ficial aspects of life, in the minute embellishment of common 
subjects with common traits, the European Continental actors 
are frequently more expert than actors of the English race; 
hut excellence in doing great things is more important and 
more admirable than excellence in doing little ones. No other 
race possesses as great a Drama as that of Shakespeare, — the 
Drama in which the supreme excellence of acting has been 
accomplished. You can carve a cherry stone or you can carve 
a block of marble, but splendid achievement in the latter 
mediu/m is greater than any possible achievement in the 
former. Individuals, particularly of the Latin races, are, as 
a rule, more volatile than those of Anglo-Saxon origin. They 
readily become excited, often about trifles. Their discourse, 
ordinarily, is voluble, their gesticulation excessive. Neither 
of those characteristics is contributory toward making them 
necessarily superior actors. The purpose of acting is to 



PREFACE 31 

impersonate character and impressively and helpfully to reveal, 
through the medium of action, the workings of the human 
mind, the feelings of the human heart, and selected repre- 
sentative experiences of the human race. Rattling volubility, 
profuse gesture, febrile excitement, and facial contortion are 
not implements of the highest dramatic art. No actor from 
the European Continental Stage has equalled, in the persona- 
tion of great Shakespearean parts, the representative actors 
of the Anglican race. Charles Fechter, one of the best players 
of the Continental school, bore no comparison with, for example, 
Edwin Booth, in Hamlet and Othello, for the reason that he 
could not even approximate to Booth's fine method of inter- 
pretative art and deep sympathy with the great elemental emo- 
tions of human nature. Rachel, the Swiss Jewess, the greatest 
actress of modern times in France (she performed in America 
in 1855), never played a Shakespearean part, but it is not 
even remotely probable that she would have borne comparison 
with Charlotte Cushman as Lady Macbeth or Ellen Terry 
as Ophelia or Ada Rehan as Rosalind. There is, in the 
Anglo-Saxon nature, a deep sincerity, a substantiality of 
power, which mingles in the operation of tlie Anglo-Saxon 
mind, however exerted. The German actors have been more 
successful than either the French or the Italian in the endeavor 
to act Shakespearean parts. Salvini, incom^parably the great- 
est of the Italian actors who have appeared in Anwrica, — 
interesting as a person and superb as an executant, — was 
remarkable for his capability, on occasion, of iron repose 
and controlled emotion; but he did not, because he could not, 
show that he had grasped the conceptions of character that 
are in Shakespeare's great plays. In the domain of artistic 
method, furthermore, — as to essentials, not superficialities, — no 



32 PREFACE 

foreign actor who has performed on the American Stage xenthin 
the last half century has equalled such American actors as 
Edward Loomis Davenport^ Henry Placide, John Gilbert, 
William Rufus Blake, Charles Burke, William Warren, William 
Florence, Joseph Jefferson, Charles Fisher, Edwin Booth, Lester 
Wallack, James Lewis, and Richard Mansfield. No foreign 
female performer — not even the greatest of them — has excelled 
the late Mrs. G. H. Gilbert, — a dramatic artist to whom full 
justice was never done. Mrs. Gilbert acted parts as diverse 
as Lady Macbeth and Betsy Trotwood; Hester Dethridge and 
Mrs. Candor; Desdemona and Goneril; Cordelia and Regan; 
and Meg Merrilies and The Marquise, and was excellent in 
all. Such actors, of the Past, as Charles James Mathews and 
Horace Wigan and such actors, of the Present, as John Hare, 
Edward Terry, Forbes-Robertson, Theodore Roberts, Ru^s 
Whytal, George Arliss, and John Mason, have not been and 
are not excelled, in any important respect, by players of the 
European Continental school. I have seen all the distinguished 
foreign theatrical performers who have appeared in America 
since 1855, and reviewing the subject in the most conscientious 
spirit, I can find no reason to distrust the judgment that 
esteems English-speaking actors as the best in English drama 
and especially in Shakespeare. The Continental ideal of 
Shakespeare^s characters is not true to the poet. Shake- 
speare^ s Hamlet is not a lachrymose young lover, a gasconad- 
ing insurgent, a skipping loon, or an expeditious, resolute 
man of affairs; Othello is not a sensual, dangerous brute; 
Shylock is not a petty, oily, sputtering Jewish peddler; 
Macbeth is not a hirsute, brawny, barbarous Norse chieftain. 
The Continental actors have often been admirable, and they 
continue to be so, when speaking their native language and 



iPREFACE 33 

perforTnmg in plays indigenous to their national literature and 
therefore fully comprehensible by them. Salmni was at his best 
when he acted Alfieri's King Saul, — a wonderful performance! 
Ristori as Queen Elizabeth and as Marie Antoinette, BogumU 
Dawison as Narcisse Rameau, Marie Seebach as Margaret, in 
Faust, Sarah Bernhardt as Donna Sol, Mounet-Sully as Her- 
nani, and Ernute Novelli as Corado mere competent and 
splendid, — accomplished actors rightly placed: no one of them 
truthfully presented or could truthfully present the whole of 
a Shakespearean conception of character, and the ideals of 
such characters which they diffused were more or less mislead- 
ing and therefore detrimental to the public judgment. 

An interesting opinion relative to this subject was given by 
the writer of the Table Talk in that good old English periodical. 
Once a Week : « 

"We have a trick of taking up every parrot cry, especially if 
it be against ourselves, and repeating it without discrimination, 
and so we go on perpetually talking of ourselves as gifted in 
an inferior degree with the mimetic power. It was first pointed 
out to me by the celebrated Delsarte, — professor of elocution in 
the Paris Conservatoire and the greatest master of his art, — ^that 
England, cold, stiif, and undemonstrative as is the general bear- 
ing of her sons, has yet produced the greatest actors the world 
ever saw. He accounted for this (to him, undoubted) fact by 
the eccentricity of our national character. The typical English- 
man does not fritter away his feelings and passions by useless 
demonstration: he pens them up till they are to be put in action." 

The notion that actors from the European Continental Stage 
are necessarily better actors than those of the English race 
is one with which many admirers of the Stage begin, and they 



34 PREFACE 

begin with it because they frequently hear it stated or meet 
with it in print. I accepted it in youth and continued to 
entertain it until observation at length forced me to perceive 
that it is mistaken. Here is an extract from the writings of 
an expert observer, who had formed a sound judgment on this 
subject and who stated it as long ago as llJfl. That observer 
was Lewis Riccoboni, actor and stage-manager, associated with 
the Italian Theatre in Paris, in the reign of King Louis the 
Fifteenth. Riccoboni reached his conclusion, as he is careful 
to state, after a study of "the manners, persons, and char- 
acters" of the actors of "the Italian, Spanish, French, Eng- 
lish, Flemish, and German theatres," and this it is: 

". . . As to the Actors, if after forty-five years' experience 
I may be entitled to give my Opinion, I dare advance that the 
best actors of Italy and France come far short of those in Eng- 
land. The Italian and French Players, far from endeavoring 
at that happy Imitation of Nature and Justness which forms the 
Beauty of Action, affect a forced, stiff Manner of Acting, which 
never fails to mislead the Audience. To form the better Judg- 
ment of both, let us compare them impartially. The English 
Authors copy Truth and are at great Pains not to Flag on the 
Stage. As for me, I have always thought, nor have I been 
singular in my Opinion, that pure simple Nature would be cold 
upon the Stage. Wherefore the Action should be heightened a 
little, and without straying too far from Nature some Art should 
be added in the speaking. As a Statue to be placed at a Dis- 
tance should be bigger than the Life, that, notwithstanding the 
Distance, it may appear in due Proportion to the Spectators, so 
the English Actors have the Art, if I may use the Expression, 
to heighten Nature, so as it ought to be shown at a Distance, 
to let us see that it is pure Nature which they represent." 



PREFACE 35 

Shakespeare^ s Plays must necessarily he condensed and vn 
some particulars altered for use in the contemporary Theatre. 
Even the shortest of his tragedies, Macbeth, contains superflu- 
ous passages. The stage editors of To-day, however, are more 
considerate toward "the original text" than the adapters of the 
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were. Nahmn Tate and 
also George Colman mangled King Lear. Garrick mutilated 
Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet, abridged The Taming oe 
THE Shrew, extracted material for a Pastoral from The 
Winter's Tale, — naming it Florizel and Perdita, — and con- 
verted The Tempest into an opera. Kemble "revised" 
Othello, Macbeth, The Merchant of Venice, Hamlet, 
King Henry V., and King Henry VIII. The various adapta- 
tions of Shakespeare were accepted and some of them are still 
in use. Garrick acted King Lear according to Tate, and so 
did Edwin Forrest. Kemble, when acting Coriolanus, gave a 
mixture of Shakespeare and Thomson. The custom long pre- 
vailed — and has not been entirely abandoned — of shifting effect- 
ive speeches from one character to another. Thomas Sheridan 
when acting Romeo appropriated to that lover the blithe words 
of Mercutio about Queen Mab and dreams. "Purists" of the 
passing hour, who would "lose no drop of the immortal man" 
and therefore protest against any change whatever in the 
poet's text, seem to suppose that an earlier time evinced a more 
reverent feeling and consequently a more considerate practice 
in this respect, but they are mistaken — as a more intimate 
acquaintance with the Past would admonish them. It is well 
to know what has been done. That fine actor Robert Mantell 
was recently censured in print for his treatment of King Lear, 
the treatment of that tragedy by Edwin Booth being, at the 
same time commended: Mantell, in fact, had used Booth's ver^ 



36 PREFACE 

sion, restoring a few lines that Booth omitted. Insistence on 
the literary element in Shakespeare's plays is doubtless right, 
if it be not carried beyond reason, — as it often is. The literary 
quality in a play is secondary to its dramatic quality — a truth 
that is illustrated and enforced by the many and various 
testimonies accumulated in this book. The excisions which are 
made from Shakespeare's Plays, in preparing them for the 
stage, if the work of preparation is done by a competent hand, 
are fownd to be, almost entirely, of two kinds: the indelicate 
and the literary. The student of English Drama, when 
exploring a subject which is extensive and perplexing, would 
find it advantageous to remark the presence and the absence 
of the great, fundamental element of Drama, — namely. Action. 
The old English dramatists chiefly expended their force on 
words. The best of their plays abound with ingredients of 
literature, — poetry, rhetoric, and eloquence, — but they seldom 
exhibit movement, and for that reason, the present age being 
exigent in its dramatic taste, they are seldom or never acted. 
The complaint that contemporary plays do not contain litera- 
ture might, no doubt, be measurably justified, but it is not 
material. Literary qualities in a play possess positive, obvious 
value, but they are not the qualities which, first of all, invest 
a play with dramatic life and make it practicable. Ben 
Jonson's tragedy of Catiline might prove interesting to a 
studious reader but no audience to-day would patiently endure 
a representation of it. Addison's Cato and Dr. Johnson's 
Irene are opulent with literary qualities but they are not 
dramatic, and if they were performed now they xvould justly 
be deemed tedious. Men of Letters have seldom manifested 
the faculty of dramatic expression. Some of the best writers 
that ever lived have failed in the effort to write a drama. 



PREFACE 37 

Milton^s use of blank verse is wonderful, his style superb^ hut 
Milton's CoMUS, viewed as drama, not as poetry, is lethargic 
and insipid. Cervantes could write Don QurxoxE, which, 
though its author held it in only the slightest esteem, the world 
regards as a precious, incomparable romance, but his plays, 
of which he wrote many and upon which he set great value, 
were practically worthless in his time, and are absolutely 
worthless in ours. Thackeray failed when, in the original form 
of his LovEL, THE WiDowER, he endeavored to write a play. 
The number of versified works which, although couched im 
dialogue and divided into Acts and Scenes, remain for 
practical stage purposes as quiescent as statues, is legion. 
Henry Taylor's Philip van Artevelde is a noble poem, but 
if presented on the stage it would prove monotonous and cum- 
bersome. It was a failure, even with so fine an actor as 
Macready in its principal part. Byron's plays, of which the 
most practicable, Werner, is substantially a paraphrase of 
Sophia Lee's story of Kruitzner, are for the Library much 
more than for the Stage. Browning's plays, though repre- 
sentative of characters and conditions, are not dramatic: his 
persons make long speeches in labored verse, and, whether 
male or female, old or young, prince or peasant, they all talk 
alike — and they all talk like Browning. In the plays of Tenny- 
son there are indications that to the inward eye of the poet 
the persons in them appeared to move, but the fancied move- 
ment was seldom liberated into their constructive fabric. That 
great and wise actor Henry Irving, before he could produce 
Becket, — the subject of which, it is interesting to remember, 
he had cherished, for dramatic treatment, during a period of 
twenty-three years before he could produce the laureate's play, 
— was obliged to cut and adapt it. The sagacious, practical 



38 PREFACE 

dramatist and manager Atigustin Daly mas obliged to make 
many changes in The Foresters, in order to insure its effective 
representation. The facidty of the dramatist is an exceptional 
and peculiar one, and no person can write an actable play who 
does not possess it. The literary plays, though often good to 
read, are not good to act. Shakespeare was dramatist as well 
as poet, but only about half of Shakespeare's plays are cus- 
tomarily acted. The supreme, distinguishing characteristic of 
his best plays is Action, and that is why they hold the stage. 
His literature, magnificent as it is, would not have sufficed to 
perpetuate his existence in the Theatre. The modern dram- 
atists have written plays some of which, while containing story 
and therefore character, are vital with propulsive movement and 
consequently are susceptible of effective exhibition by means of 
the Art of Acting, and though they are not '^or all time" they 
are destined to a considerable longevity. There was a time 
when the theatrical audience would listen with approval and 
enjoyment to long, declamatory speeches; when verbal tumults, 
sentimental exhortations, harangues of hysterical emotion and 
personifications of the cardinal virtues and vices were admired 
expedients of theatrical performance. That time has gone. 
There are long speeches in all the plays of Shakespeare, but 
those which it is found always necessary to retain are speeches 
which arise spontaneously out of the action and reaction of 
character and circumstance, and which are confluent with the 
movement. No audience is ever fatigued by adequate delivery 
of such speeches as those beginning "Give me another horse! — 
bind up my wounds''; "To bait fish withal!"; "The quality of 
mercy is not strained"; "I had been happy"; "Oh, what a rogue 
and peasant slave am I"; "Now o'er the one half world," or 
"Cromwell, I charge thee, fling away ambition." All along 



PREFACE 39 

the line of theatrical development, and proceeding with more 
and more of acquired momentum, a movement has been operative 
to abandon or greatly to modify the declamatory style of act- 
ing and to concentrate the resources of histrionic art upon 
impersonation. The best artistic temperament of the world 
to-day craves the seeming substance of things, — reality trans- 
figured in ideal forms, the affluence, the sensuous glow, and the 
coruscant splendor of conscious, exultant life. On the stage, 
therefore, human beings are preferred rather than abstractions, 
and the best modern dramatists, obeying at once their inward 
monition and the deep impulse of the age, have aimed to create 
characters susceptible of impersonation and diffusive of various 
forms of enjoyment, and not animated machines for rownding 
a rhetorical period or reciting a passage of blank verse. The 
great plays of Shakespeare, meanwhile, are, for practical pur- 
poses, as modern as if they had been written to-day, and 
because of their vitality of action in the exposition of elemental, 
universal experience, those plays will continue to be modern, 
when in a distant future many if not all the plays of our age, 
because they exhibit only passing phases of contemporary life, 
will be forgotten. 

W. W. 
New Brighton, New York, 
November 11, 1911. 



'/w the first seat, in rohe of varioiLs dyes, 
A noble wildness flashing from his eyes. 
Sat Shakespeaee. In one hand a wand he bore, 
For mighty wonders famed, in days of yore. 
The other held a globe, which to his will 
Obedient turned and owned the master's skill: 
Things of the noblest kind his genius drew. 
And looked through Nature at a single view: 
A loose he gave to his unbounded soul 
And taught new lands to rise, new seas to roll. 
Called into being scenes unknown before 
And passing Nature's bounds was something more." 

— Churchill. 



I. 

« SHAKESPEARE SPELLS RUIN." 

" But we worldly men 
Have imserable, mad, mistaking eyes." 

— Shakespeare. 

FACT VERSUS FANCY. 

If you wish that a statement should be beheved and 
established as a permanent truth, make it, and keep 
on making it. There is scarce any force as potent 
as the Parrot Cry, and nowhere has it been used more 
liberally or more effectually than in the management 
of theatrical business. Much contemporary theatri- 
cal reputation rests upon it. With a Parrot Cry the 
Press Agent can accomplish almost anything. Select 
a girl with a pretty face, a piquant demeanor, a win- 
ning way, the charm of youth, sufficient self-assur- 
ance to maintain composure when in the presence of 
an audience, and, by means of liberal advertisement, 
newspaper interviews, and copious distribution of 
three-, twenty-, and thirty-sheet posters, proclaim that 
she is a marvellous being and a superlative dramatic 
artist, persist in your proclamation, and the result is 

41 



42 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

inevitable. The Parrot Cry allures the Public, and 
in a little time a new leading actress has been created, 
to irradiate the Stage! 

The Parrot Cry is as potential to mar as it is to 
make. In 1910, in London, the death occurred of 
an exceptionally able and accomplished actor, whose 
professional career had been, practically, blighted by 
it. His name was Herman Vezin. He passed away 
at the age of eighty-one. In his time he played many 
parts. He was the original representative of Hare- 
hell, in "The Man o' Airlie." He was the first per- 
former of Dr. Primrose, the Vicar of Wakefield, in 
Wills's fine play " Olivia." His impersonation of 
Jaques, in " As You Like It," was superb. He was 
admirable in the character of Othello. Once, when 
Henry Irving was disabled by severe illness and 
could not continue to act, he took the place of that 
actor, as Macbeth, and gave a poetical performance 
of that great and exacting part. Every part that he 
played was played well. His elocution, in particular, 
was excellent. He was a charming man, and in private 
life exemplary and much respected. Early in his 
career, however, it chanced that he participated in two 
or three plays which were accounted failures, and there- 
upon a newspaper writer designated him " a Jonah." 
The epithet was repeated, was echoed, was reiterated. 
It stuck to him. It generated a prejudice against 



"SHAKESPEARE SPELLS RUIN" 43 

him. Announcement that he would act in a new i)lay 
seemed to establish a presumption that the new play 
would fail. He was customarily slighted. He was 
driven to the expedient of teaching as a means of 
obtaining subsistence. All possibility of a great career 
was destroyed for him. He spoke of the injustice 
with, naturally, a bitter resentment. " They have 
called me ' a Jonah,' " he said, " and they have ruined 
my life." 

Many years have passed since the London theatrical 
manager, Frederick Balsir Chatterton (1835-1886), 
proclaimed the opinion that "Shakespeare spells 
Ruin," — doing so for the reason that he had (1873) 
made a costly production of Shakespeare's superb 
tragedy of "Antony and Cleopatra" and lost a large 
sum of money by it. That, as it has proved, was a 
particularly mischievous statement, for Chatter- 
ton, as manager of Drury Lane Theatre, occupied a 
commanding position, and his misleading deliverance 
was at once taken up and widely echoed, and the 
persistent iteration of it, which still continues, has 
been instrumental in disseminating error and impeding 
good enterprise. Nothing could be further from the 
truth than the statement that "Shakespeare spells 
Ruin." Incessant representation of Shakespeare's 
plays, indeed, never has been, is not, and never will 
be either financially advantageous or in any way 



U SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

desirable. Excess is tiresome, and an excess of 
Shakespeare would be inexpressibly^ tedious, especially 
to those persons who are constrained to pass the 
greater part of their lives in attending theatres and 
studying plaj^s. The plays of Shakespeare, however, 
are the best that the English-speaking race possesses; 
they are a fountainhead of modern drama, they give 
abundant pleasure and benefit when properly pre- 
sented, and knowledge and practical use of them are 
essential to the dignity, influence, and welfare of an 
intellectual stage. A judicious presentment of Shake- 
speare is not only salutary but imperatively essential 
to the general good. The American theatregoing 
public is the most liberal in the world. It deserves 
well of the theatre, and, being entitled to see the best 
that can be shown, it is entitled to see the plays of 
Shakespeare acted, and to see them acted well. When- 
ever they are acted well they succeed, — that is to say, 
they not only please the "judicious few" but they 
"make money," and they have been known to succeed, 
commercially, even when acted ill. The Parrot Cry, 
"Shakespeare spells Ruin," nevertheless, has had the 
deleterious effect of discouraging even a judicious use 
of that author, and of prompting much vacuous and 
harmful comment on his plaj^s when any of them 
have been presented. At this time, in America, only 
three actors of major importance and influence cus- 



"SHAKESPEARE SPELLS RUIN" 45 

tomarily present any of the plays of Shakespeare, 
while several of those plays, — which it would be a 
delight to see, — are, practically, unknown to our stage. 
It is deplorably true, likewise, that, although fine 
individual impersonations become occasionally visible, 
no complete "all 'round" performance of a Shake- 
spearean play can anywhere be seen in America. The 
custom of acting Shakespeare has been permitted to 
dwindle. The necessary and valuable traditions have 
been, in a great measure, allowed to die. There 
should be a revival, before it is too late. Experience 
warrants it, and taste requires it. 

On February 3, 1869, that great actor and greater 
man, Edwin Booth, opened Booth's Theatre, in New 
York, — at the southeast corner of Sixth Avenue and 
Twenty- third Street. Booth, — a dreamer, gentle, 
trustful, and eager, — was unfit for commercial vent- 
ures. His theatre, instead of costing about $500,000, 
all told, as he had expected, cost more than $1,000,000. 
He managed it for three years, and, contrary to a 
generally accepted belief, his management of that 
theatre was, financially as well as artistically, suc- 
cessful, — the first year showing a net profit of $100,- 
000, the second a net profit of $85,000, and the third 
a net profit of $70,000. But the burden of debt that 
unhappily had been imposed on him in its construction 
was exceedingly heavy. His health was impaired. He 



46 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

decided to retire from management, and he did so, in 
June, 1873. Seven months later, — January 26, 1874, 
— he was, unwisely and needlesslj^ induced to go into 
bankruptcy. In March, 1877, he was released from 
legal meshes by the action of James H. McVicker, 
of Chicago, who bought all Booth's debts, and allowed 
him the necessary reasonable time in which to pay 
them. This he did, at the rate of $75,000 a year. 
His burdens, meanwhile, were continuous and exhaust- 
ing. He did not much like to act, but preferred to 
sit in a corner, and smoke, and ruminate. He had 
sunk his second fortune in the building of his theatre. 
In 1886 he formed a partnership with his friend 
Lawrence Barrett, who became his business manager. 
During their first season they acted separately, but 
in 1887, beginning at Buffalo, September 12, they 
acted together, and they continued so to act, — Madame 
Helena Modjeska joining them, for a time, in 1889, — 
until the sudden, lamentable death of BaiTctt, March 
20, 1891. On the afternoon of April 4, 1891, at the old 
Academy of Music, in Brooklyn, Booth made his last 
appearance on the stage, acting Hamlet. On June 7, 
1893, he died, at The Players, No. 16 Gramercy Park, 
New York City. He had founded that club, on 
December 31, 1888, and given to it the building in 
which it is housed, with furniture, library, and all need- 
ful accessories. When his estate had been settled it 



"SHAKESPEARE SPELLS RUIN" 47 

was found that he had left a fortune of $605,000. He 
had paid to J. H. McVicker all the balance of his huge 
indebtedness, incurred in the erection of Booth's The- 
atre; he had borne the heavy expenses of his large the- 
atrical company, — scenery and dresses for his plays, 
and transportation; he had supported himself; he had 
handsomely endowed his daughter, on her marriage; 
he had endowed The Players; and he had left more 
than half a million dollars: and he earned all the 
money with which to do those deeds by practice of 
his profession, between 1874 and April, 1891, — and 
he earned it by presenting a repertory of sixteen 
parts, all told, of which eleven were Shake- 
spearean; those upon which he chiefly relied, except 
Richelieu, were all Shakespeare's, — namely, Hamlet, 
Brutus, Macbeth, Shylock, Lear, lago, and Othello! 
That is a form of "Ruin" to which most persons 
would be resigned! And all this, it should be re- 
membered, was accomplished by a man in fluctuating 
health, who, in the course of the period specified, had 
suffered a severe, almost fatal, accident — the breaking 
of one arm and two ribs (1875), — and a stroke of 
paralysis (1889). 

In 1871 Henry Irving, after a long period of exact- 
ing and exhausting labor, had been recognized as an 
actor of auspicious ability, — but nothing more. He 
was then engaged by H. L. Bateman, and he began 



48 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

his career at the London Lyceum Theatre. On 
November 25, 1871, he, for the first time, appeared 
as Mathias, in "The Bells," giving a performance 
which clearly revealed him as an authentic dramatic 
genius and which caused a public sensation such as 
had not been known in the London Theatre since 
the memorable night when Edmund Kean flashed 
on the stage as Shylock. From that hour he steadily 
advanced in artistic authority and public esteem, 
contemning detraction, defeating enmity, and sur- 
mounting every obstacle. For thirty years he held 
the fortunes of the British Theatre in the hollow 
of his hand. He did more than any other indi- 
vidual worker has ever done to advance the stage in 
essential, intrinsic worth and in the esteem of intel- 
lectual, reputable society, and his name, therefore, is 
the most illustrious in the history of the Theatre. 
His experience in dealing with the plays of Shake- 
speare is especially instructive. During his twenty- 
seven years of association with the Lyceum Theatre 
thirteen of Shakespeare's plaj^s were produced there, 
of which only three w^ere financial failures, while the 
others were abundantly remunerative. "Hamlet" had 
200 successive and pajdng performances, — the longest 
run ever made with that play, — and when reproduced 
later it was acted 108 consecutive times. "Romeo and 
Juliet," when brought out at the Lyceum, in 1882, had 



"SHAKESPEARE SPELLS RUIN" 49 

130 consecutive representations. "Much Ado About 
Nothing" was acted 212 consecutive times, when Irving 
first produced it, — and acted to a profit of £26,000, 
or, approximately, $128,000. "King Henry VIII." 
had a run of 172 consecutive performances. Most of 
Irving's Shakespearean productions were frequently 
revived and several of them were retained in his regu- 
lar repertoiy till the last. "The Merchant of Venice," 
when he first produced it at the Lyceum, had 250 
consecutive performances, — ^the longest run ever made 
with any one of Shakespeare's plays, in any country, 
at any time; and Shyloch remained in Irving's 
repertory to the end of his career. His last appear- 
ance at the London Lyceum was made in that 
character, and he acted it, at Bradford, for the last 
time, only four nights before his death, — which befell 
in that town on October 13, 1905. Irving's manage- 
ment of the Lyceum extended from August 31, 1878, 
to June 10, 1905, and his gross receipts, in that time, 
were £2,261,637 10^. ItZ.— approximately $10,500,000, 
— and at least one-third of that sum was earned by his 
productions of plays of Shakespeare. 

Augustin Daly, the most brilliant, indomitable, and 
resourceful manager America has produced, who 
adopted theatrical management in 1869, and, except 
for a brief interval, — part of the years from the 
autumn of 1877 to that of 1879, — remained in that 



50 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

vocation till his death, in 1899, produced many of 
the plays of Shakespeare, and almost invariably he 
prospered in his productions and subsequent revivals 
of them. At Daly's Theatre, in the years from 1887 
to 1899, he presented "The Taming of the Shrew," 
"As You Like It," "All's Well That Ends Well," 
"The Two Gentlemen of Verona," "A Midsummer 
Night's Dream," "Twelfth Night," "Much Ado About 
Nothing," "The Tempest," and "The Merchant of 
Venice." With "The Taming of the Shrew," in which 
Ada Rehan gave a puissant and brilliant performance 
of Katherine, — developing, for the first time in the 
long record of stage interpretations of that part, the 
lovely, lovable, tractable woman out of the shrill 
pugnacious, impetuous vixen, — his gross earnings, first 
and last, amounted to about $2,000,000, — for that 
comedy was presented by him during long periods and 
in many cities, throughout America, in Paris, Berlin, 
and Hamburg, and in London and the British prov- 
inces. With "Twelfth Night" and "As You Like It," 
also, he had extraordinary prosperity, — Miss Rehan 
giving the most poetic performance of Viola that had 
been seen since the golden day of Adelaide Neilson, 
and giving the most evenly sustained and pervasively 
sparkling performance of Rosalind that has been 
shown in our time, or, as far as studious inquiry 
ascertains, in any time. 



"SHAKESPEARE SPELLS RUIN" 51 

The views of Augustin Daly, relative to Shake- 
spearean productions, were thus stated by him: 

" I fully believe that, where the sole purpose in producing 
a Shakespearean play is to make money by spectacular 
profusion, disaster is likely to result. To overload the 
drama with cumbrous decoration and supplement it with 
irrelevant show is not to honor the poet, nor to encourage 
the study of his beauties, nor to please his judicious ad- 
mirers: It is to bid for a support more readily accorded to 
the Hippodrome than to the Stage. I believe I have the right 
to claim a more respectable motive for my own work in 
reviving these classics of the English Drama. Ever since I 
began management, now (1887) some eighteen years, I have 
devoted a period in every season to the production of a 
Shakespearean play or an old comedy. None of these produc- 
tions was ever offered by me to the public with the expecta- 
tion that it was destined to popular favor by reason of the 
outlay made upon it. Yet my audiences will bear me out 
that in not one instance has a limit been fixed to that expense 
which would make the performance worthy of the poet, 
acceptable to my patrons, and creditable to the theatre. I 
have been contented, if for two or three weeks I have seen full 
and appreciative houses, and have been content to take off 
the play when the admirers of Old Comedy had been 
satisfied. . . ." 

Among the most remunerative plays ever produced 
are "Pizarro," "Rip Van Winkle," "Monte Cristo," 
"Our Boys," "Drink," "The Old Homestead," "Ben- 
Hur," and "The Music Master." The profits from 
presentation of "The Music Master" have, it is said, 
reached $2,500,000; yet, large as that sum is, it 



52 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

is much less than has been paid to see some of 
the plays named in association with it. Lord 
Byron, who had been a director of Drmy Lane 
Theatre, said to Medwin (1822), "Bad as 'Pizarro' 
is, it has brought in more money than any other 
play has ever done." The best money-gainer ever 
produced in modern times is, probablj^ "Rip Van 
Winkle." Jefferson, to whose genius it owes its 
prosperity, used it for many years and presented 
it many times. The claim, indeed, has been made 
that he gave more than 15,000 performances of Rip, 
but that is an exaggeration. He did not himself know 
precisely how many times he had acted the part. I 
have made a careful computation, and I think it cer- 
tain that he did not act Rip more than about 5,800 
times. That, in itself, probably is an unparalleled 
achievement. In the early part of Jefferson's profes- 
sional career his impersonation of Rip did not attract 
extraordinary notice and the receipts were com- 
paratively small, but during the middle and latter part 
of his career he was much followed and the receipts 
were very large. He received from Edwin Booth, as 
his share, a guarantee of $750 a performance, during 
the long run of "Rip Van Winkle" at Booth's Theatre, 
August 15, 1870, to February 7, 1871. On some occa- 
sions in late years the gross income of "Rip" exceeded 
$23,000 a week, — approximately $3,000 for each per- 



"SHAKESPEARE SPELLS RUIN" 53 

formance. The sum of $1,200 would seem to be a 
safely conservative estimate of the average receipts 
for each performance of Rip that Jefferson gave, in 
the whole course of his professional life, and the total 
gross receipts, computed on that basis, would be 
$6,960,000. The seven predecessors and various sub- 
sequent imitators of Jefferson's Rip have, probably, 
obtained as much more. 

But neither "Rip Van Winkle" nor any other mod- 
ern play has earned as much money as has been earned, 
individually, by some of the plays of Shakespeare, 
nor is there reason to believe that those modern plays 
possess anything like the intrinsic vitality and "stay- 
ing-power" of the Shakespearean drama. I have 
seen nearly or quite a hundred different produc- 
tions of "The Merchant of Venice"; and, probably, 
each of the actors representative of Sliylock, in those 
productions, in the course of his career, acted that 
part at least 100 times: more than one of those 
actors must have acted it more than 500 times: 
Henry Irving acted it at least 2,000 times. Since 
its first performance, August 25, 1594 (?), "The 
Merchant of Venice" has been acted throughout 
Europe, America, and Australia, and it is probable 
that, in the course of three centuries and more, it has 
been acted no fewer than 100,000 times, all told, and, 
if the average of receipts be estimated at only $350 



54 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

a performance, the total income would amount to 
$35,000,000. "Hamlet" and "Romeo and Juliet" have 
been performed even more frequently than "The Mer- 
chant of Venice" has. It is safe to predict that 
Shakespeare will endure. 

The reiteration, by persons making themselves 
public as theatrical "managers," of the statement that 
"Shakespeare spells Ruin" is so insistent, not to say 
blatant, that, in the face of the facts, it causes equal 
contempt and astonishment. A caustic remark made 
by Cromwell, to the dissenting Commoners, is not in- 
appropriate: "I beg you to believe that it is possible 
for you to be mistaken." The experience of individual 
actors in the presentment of Shakespeare's plays 
has, from the first, been especially instructive, and 
it has been, in almost innumerable instances, an 
experience of opulent success. The reader of old 
theatrical records, whether they relate to the stage 
of Great Britain or to that of her American colonies 
or to that of the United States in the early days 
of the Republic, continually finds that the leading 
players evince their highest ambition, exert their 
utmost powers, and are judged by their achievements, 
in the great characters of the Shakespearean drama. 
Ingenuity has produced novelties. Taste has fluc- 
tuated. Each succeeding generation has evolved a 
style of drama peculiar to itself. But, notwithstand- 



"SHAKESPEARE SPELLS RUIN" 55 

ing the opposition of ignorance and cupidity, there 
has been no period, since the revival of the Theatre 
toward the end of the seventeenth century, without 
Shakespeare, and almost every name of dramatic dis- 
tinction which has survived in remembrance to the 
present day is associated with one or more of Shake- 
speare's characters. Cooper and Fennell, conspicuous 
favorites on the American stage about the beginning 
of the nineteenth century, each possessed a varied 
repertory, but it was in Shakespeare that both of 
them gained their best success. Nearer to our day, 
and well-remembered, Edwin Fon'est, in his prime, 
prospered abundantly with "Othello," "King Lear," 
"Hamlet," and "Macbeth." Charlotte Cushman 
gained fortune as well as her greatest fame with the 
characters of Lady Macbeth and Queen Katharine. 
Mme. Modjeska was long on the crest of the wave, 
fortunate no less than famous, with a repertory that 
comprised Juliet, Rosalind, Imogen, Ophelia, Portia, 
Beatrice, Isabella, Queen Katharine, Lady Macbeth, 
and Constance. Mary Anderson established herself 
as the favorite of two worlds and gained a substantial 
fortune with "Romeo and Juliet," "As You Like It," 
and "The Winter's Tale": Juliet, Rosalind, Hermione, 
Perdita, Desdemona, and Lady Macbeth (in one 
scene) are the only Shakespearean parts that she ever 
played. Richard Mansfield, although he lost $167,000 



56 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

by his ventures of 1888-89, largely with "King Richard 
III.," owed much of his pecuniary prosperity, as well 
as much of his fame, to his acting, and to the artistic 
fame of it, as Richard the. Third. During one whole 
season, furthermore, he confined his exertions exclu- 
sively to "King Henry V.," and during another he 
presented only "Julius Csesar," — and his profits during 
the latter exceeded those of any other season in the 
whole of his professional career, not excepting even 
that of his presentation of "Cyrano de Bergerac." 
The late Louis James depended mainly on Shakespeare 
during the last and more important half of his life. 
Viola Allen was amply successful with her impersona- 
tions of Viola, Hermione,, and Perdita. Julia Marlowe 
has acquired riches and brilliant reputation by acting 
Juliet, — ^her impersonation of that difficult part being 
the best now visible anywhere on the stage, — and 
by giving her lovely embodiment of Viola. Edward 
Hugh Sothern and Miss Marlowe, acting at the 
Academy of Music, in New York, in one of the most 
disastrous of theatrical seasons (1909-10), attracted and 
delighted audiences that packed that huge theatre 
to the roof by presentments of "Hamlet," "Romeo 
and Juliet," "Twelfth Night," and "As You Like It"; 
and later, December, 1910, acting in New York, at 
the Broadway Theatre, in that repertory, — augmented 
by "Macbeth," — and doing so at prices reduced one- 



"SHAKESPEARE SPELLS RUIN" 57 

fourth from the costomary charge for an orchestra 
seat (that is, to $1.50), — they attracted audiences 
which filled that house at every performance : and aside 
from being treated, alike by the press and the public, 
with every mark of distinguished consideration as 
artists, they gained a financial reward as abundant 
as even the most profusely advertised of popular 
"wanted" plays or spectacles has obtained, — their 
receipts amounting to an average of $16,000 a week. 
Their prosperity, furthermore, continues. 

It is not essential to dilate on the ventures of all 
the prominent actors who have produced plays of 
Shakespeare and earned fortune as well as reputation 
by their enterprise in that field of artistic achievement. 
Several names, however, suggest themselves for men- 
tion. William Charles Macready, in the course of 
his management of Covent Garden and Drury Lane, 
— two seasons only at each of those theatres, 1837-39 
at the former, 1841-43 at the latter, — produced twenty 
of Shakespeare's plays, and on them, in after years, 
he chiefly relied. The most remunerative play in his 
large repertory, when he acted in America (his visits 
to the United States were made in 1826, 1843, and 
1848), was "Hamlet." Samuel Phelps, who managed 
Sadler's Wells Theatre for eighteen years, 1844-62, 
produced all the plays of Shakespeare, except 
"King Henry VI.," "Troilus and Cressida," "Titus 



58 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

Andronicus," and "King Richard II.," and he was 
richly rewarded. Charles Kean gained his most opu- 
lent success by the presentment of Shakespeare's 
plays, of which, when managing the Princess's 
Theatre, 1850-59, he produced thirteen, in a style of 
unprecedented magnificence. Ellen Tree, Helena 
Faucit, Mary Amelia Huddart (Mrs. Warner), 
Adelaide Neilson, Ellen Terry, Isabella Glyn, Fanny 
Janauschek, Marie Seebach, Bogumil Dawison, Adolf 
von Sonnenthal, Ernst von Possart, Tommaso Salvini, 
Friedrich Haase, Ernesto Rossi, Jean Mounet- Sully, 
Ermete Novelli, are names intimately associated with 
amply remunerative representations of the plays of 
Shakespeare. 

The most striking of contemporary examples of the 
value of Shakespeare on the stage is that which has 
been furnished by the experience of Robert B. Man- 
tell, the actor who, by right of ability, efficiency, and 
professional achievement, is now (1911) the legitimate 
leader of the American stage. When Mr. Mantell 
made his first important appearance in New York, 
October 1, 1883, at the old Fourteenth Street Theatre, 
acting Loris Ipanof, in Sardou's "Fedora," he gained 
signal success, and it was expected that he would long 
remain one of the most important dramatic figures of 
the capital. But after a period of growing popularity, 
disaster befell him. He was ill advised and ill guided, 



"SHAKESPEARE SPELLS RUIN" 59 

and soon New York was closed to him. In 1904 
he was, as he had been for many years, toihng in the 
irksome labyrinth known to actors as " the road." 
Much of the time he was acting in "one-night 
stands." In November of that year, in Texas, he 
received a circular letter, which had been sent out 
by the Messrs. Sam S. and Lee Shubert, theatrical 
managers, offering "three weeks of choice time in 
New York City," those three weeks of "choice time" 
being, in fact, the worst of the season, the three 
weeks immediately preceding Christmas. The theatre 
thus offered was the Princess, — a little box, now hap- 
pily demolished, at the southwest corner of Broad- 
way and Twenty-ninth Street, — an "up-stairs theatre" 
with a reputation of many failures. Mr. Mantell, 
being almost desperate, impulsively determined to 
try his fortunes once more in the capital, and there- 
fore he hastily made such arrangements as would 
permit his reappearance in New York, and engaged 
the three weeks of "choice time" at the Princess. On 
December 5, that year, he appeared there, in Cib- 
ber's version of Shakespeare's "King Richard III." 
The stage hands had importuned him for a scene 
rehearsal, but their importunity had been disregarded. 
"They only wanted to get money out of me," the actor 
said, in recounting this experience; "the scenery had 
often been used in one-night stands, coming into the 



60 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

theatre at five in the afternoon, and there was no need 
of a full scene rehearsal. Besides, the truth is, I 
couldn't afford the money to pay for that luxury." 
The consequence was that everything was done that 
brutal men could do to injure the perfonnance. The 
diminutive stage (that of the same theatre which had 
helped to spoil Richard Mansfield's first production 
of "The Merchant of Venice") was too small for the 
scenery. During the first front scene Mr. Mantell, 
who had a space only about three feet wide in which 
to move between the drop and the footlights, was 
almost precipitated into the orchestra by persons 
beliind the drop who "accidentally" stumbled and 
lunged against him. A single mishap might ruin his 
venture, and it meant everything to him to recover a 
foothold in the capital. Wliile momentarily absent 
from the scene he had warned the stage hands of 
serious danger if the persecution was continued: 
" 'Some one will get badly hurt,' I said" (so he related 
the incident), "and I meant what I said: my house, 
though not crowded, was attentive; many writers for 
the press were in front: I was trying 'to come back.' 
When I had returned to the scene I heard some 
jeering and laughter in the wings, and presently I 
was aware of some one feeling along the drop to 
find where I was standing; a jolt with his shoulder 
would have toppled me into the orchestra pit. I 



"SHAKESPEARE SPELLS RUIN" 61 

drew my dagger, and as I felt the man come directly 
behind me I drove it backward through the canvas. 
There was a cry and a fall, then some confusion, then 
silence, — and I finished my scene in peace. When 
I came off one of the 'hands' came blustering up to 
me. 'Say,' he said, 'do you know you've killed a 
man here?' I turned on him in fury. I was utterly 
regardless of consequences. 'I sincerely hope I havef 
I said (the fellow was lying on a sofa, groaning and 
piling on the agony; he had a nasty cut in his leg, 
as I afterward learned, but nothing serious), and 
I turned to my dresser. 'Go and get me my last-act 
gauntlet,' I told him. My little Jap bolted for it 
and was back in a moment. I wear an iron-shod 
glove in that act, heavy enough to fell an ox. I drew 
it on and turned to the 'grip.' 'Now see here,' I 
said to him, 'I'm a strong man; I can hit hard, at any 
time. I'm going to wear this glove through the rest 
of this performance, and if there's any disturbance 
while the curtain is up I'll leave the stage and brain 
the man that makes it, with this.' I meant it: and 
I never acted on so quiet a stage as that one was for 
the rest of that night." 

Such treatment was enough to disconcert and ruin 
any perfoiTnance, but Mr. Mantell persevered, and 
his ability and determination conquered. "King 
Richard III." was followed by "Othello." A shrewd 



62 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

manager, Mr. William A. Brady, observed the effect 
created by acting^ even though hampered by wretched 
scenery and costumes and a miserable company, saw 
the opportunity, and speedily formed an alliance 
with the intrepid actor. The next year Mr. Man- 
tell played at the Garden Theatre, New York, and 
his receipts were, approximately, $4,000 a week. In 
Harlem they rose to $4,500. Later he was able to 
secure a little time at the spacious, fashionable New 
Amsterdam Theatre, — where, although in the spring 
and almost at the end of the season, his receipts 
were $8,317.25 for the first week and $9,519.75 for 
the second. During four weeks at the Academy 
of Music, although he played at what are called 
"popular prices," — the highest priced ticket cost- 
ing only $1.50, — the gross receipts were $39,939, or 
practically $10,000 each week. Then for a year or 
more the capital was again closed to him, because 
satisfactory terms could not be obtained from the 
arbitrary Theatrical Syndicate, a tyrannical monopoly 
in those days, well representative of the gross and 
base spirit which proclaims that "Shakespeare spells 
Ruin." That unjust power, however, had begun to 
totter. First one and then another of the vulgar 
spectacles that are supposed to "spell Success" failed. 
There was a public outcry against indecency on the 
stage, — an outcry in which many of the best elements 



"SHAKESPEARE SPELLS RUIN" 63 

in the community participated. Soon the Broadway- 
Theatre, and then the New Amsterdam, were opened 
to Mr. Mantell, for it had become evident even to dull, 
shop-keeping perception that a return to legitimate 
drama was "wanted" and demanded by the public. 
On March 9, 1909, Mr. Mantell began an engagement 
in the capital, at the New Amsterdam Theatre, acting 
King John, and giving the best impersonation of that 
part of which there is record in the history of the 
American Stage. That engagement, first at the New 
Amsterdam and then at the Academy of Music, 
lasted until May 29, and in the brilliant course of 
it more than one hundred performances were given 
of plays of Shakespeare. With a repertory that 
"spells Ruin" (a repertory comprising Othello, I ago, 
Hamlet, Richard the Third, King Lear, Macbeth, King 
John, Brutus, Shyloch, and Romeo, — Shakespearean 
characters all), Mr. Mantell, in the period of less 
than five years raised himself from the comparative 
obscurity of, commercially speaking, a third-rate star, 
and from the poverty which could not afford a 
full scene rehearsal, to independence, fortune, and 
the honorable position rightfully his due in the boun- 
teous acceptance of the American people. 

It is not meant that Shakespeare necessarily spells 
Fortune. The many dismal failures which have been 
made in presentations of his plays are not forgotten 



64 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

or ignored. But whether in such instances as those 
of Booth's presentment of "The Winter's Tale," or 
Irving's of "Twelfth Night" (in which, however, 
he gave a great performance of Malvolio), or Miss 
Maude Adams's melancholy venture in "Romeo 
and JuHet," or Mr. N. C. Goodwin's abortive 
endeavors in "The Merchant of Venice" and "A Mid- 
summer Night's Dream," or the decisive failure 
of Mr. Sothern and Miss Marlowe in "Antony and 
Cleopatra," or the disaster that attended the recent 
(1910) presentation of "The Merry Wives of Wind- 
sor" at the New Theatre, — bad judgment as to the 
play, the time, and the place, and, most of all, the 
incompetent acting of vitally important parts, pre- 
cipitated disaster. The ship did not split on the rock 
of Shakespeare. Such mishaps only tend to prove the 
contention that Shakespeare's plays, well acted and 
at the right time and place, never "spell Ruin," — for 
all those plays, adequately and wisely produced, have 
had ample success, notwithstanding the failure of the 
ventures just mentioned. Painting is not the only 
art in which the colors must be "mixed with brains." 
Good acting may carry a bad play to financial suc- 
cess, but bad acting will, generally, kill almost any 
poetic drama, however fine. The reason why man- 
agers decry and oppose, — as many of them do, — ^the 
presentation of Shakespeare is not obscure. As a rule. 



"SHAKESPEARE SPELLS RUIN" 65 

less profit can be gained in a given time by presenting 
Shakespeare's plays than by presenting some mod- 
ern plays, especially such modern plaj^s as require only 
one or two simple sets of scenery and only six or eight 
or ten actors to represent them. None of Shake- 
speare's plays can be presented in fewer than four acts, 
each containing several scenes. A fairly large com- 
pany is essential, and considerable scenery and many 
dresses are required. Under those circumstances, — 
the control of the American Theatre being largely in 
the hands of persons who care only for monetary gain, 
— a reasonable profit is deemed insufficient. The plays 
of Shakespeare, furthermore, cannot be produced by 
janitors; they must be acted, and the actors of to-day, 
as a class, are inadequate to the demands of Shake- 
spearean parts, because they have little or no suitable 
training to enable them to act those parts. 

A success in Shakespeare is far more enduring than 
a success in most other plays. The plays of Shake- 
speare can, in every instance, be presented at less 
cost than is often lavished on "musical" abomi- 
nations now current, — in order to pay for which 
prodigality it has been seriously urged that managers 
must tax the public through the dishonest medium 
of "theatre-ticket speculation"! H. L. Bateman's 
Lyceum revival of "Hamlet" in which Henry Irving 
acted the Prince cost only £100; Irving's production 



66 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

of "The Merchant of Venice" cost only £1,200, and 
he expended only £861 during its run, for further 
embellishments and to "keep up" the scenery and 
other accessories: but he acted Hamlet and Shylock; 
while all the other parts in those plays, when he pro- 
duced them, were acted in a competent manner. 

The custom that ought to be restored and faithfully 
followed is one that would provide for an adequate, 
comprehensive training in the technicalities of the 
art of acting. No reasonable person wishes to see 
the production of good new plays restricted or that 
the community should fail to recognize and applaud 
those plays and the fine acting that is sometimes seen 
in them. But the new plays are not all. The highest 
form of acting is impersonation in poetic drama, — 
tragedy or comedy, — a form of acting almost unknown 
on the contemporary stage, in any splendid instances. 
Yet the public is entitled to see such acting and the 
public "wants" it, — as much as it wants, for example, 
John Mason's noble impersonation of Doctor Seelig, 
or George Nash's sympathetic embodiment of Wilbur 
Emerson., or Russ Whytall's delicate, winning, lovable 
Judge Prentiss, or David Warfield's Herr von Bar- 
wig, or Maude Adams's Peter Pan, or Mrs. Fiske's 
Leah Kleschna. Such performances as Forrest's Lear, 
Booth's Richelieu, McCullough's Virginius, Irving's 
Shylock, Davenport's Macbeth, Salvini's Gladiator, 



"SHAKESPEARE SPELLS RUIN" 67 

Charlotte Cushman's Queen Katharine, Ellen Terry's 
Beatrice^ Ada Rehan's Rosalind, Adelaide Neilson's 
Viola, and Mary Anderson's Hermione and Perdita, 
would pack any theatre of the present day for a long 
time, and also would make a reputation that would 
endure for generations. No performances of that 
calibre are visible now, nor are there actors visible who 
seem capable of giving them if they had the oppor- 
tunity. It is not the lack of natural ability that causes 
an impoverished condition of our stage; it is the lack 
of opportunity for the development of actors, — and the 
lack of that opportunity has been brought about, at 
least in part, by the parrot-like repetition and the 
selfish or supine acceptance of the radically false and 
injurious assertion that "Shakespeare spells Ruin." 



II. 

KING RICHARD III. 

"And all complexions act at once confusedly in him: 
He studieth,stnketh, threats, entreats, and looTieth mildly grim. 
Mistrustfully he trusteth, and he dreadingly doth dare. 
And forty passions in a trice in him consort and square.'''' 

— Warnee. 

HISTORICAL COMMENT. 

Throughout four centuries the memory of King 
Richard the Third has been persistently blackened by 
the ascription to him of a sinister character, a malig- 
nant will, and the ruthless commission of infernal 
crimes. An occasional word, indeed, has been spoken 
in his vindication, — Sir George Buck, Horace Wal- 
pole, Sharon Turner, Caroline A. Halstead, and the 
learned and eminently judicious commentator, Alfred 
O. Legge, in particular, having ably espoused his 
cause, — but historians in general, in their narratives 
of his life, have followed, as Shakespeare did, in 
his play on that subject, the authority of the chron- 
iclers Hall and Holinshed, who followed that of 
Sir Thomas More; and it is incontrovertible that 
Mere's account of King Richard the Third was in- 

68 



KING RICHARD III. 69 

spired, if not actually in great part written, by John 
Morton, whom King Henry the Seventh, Richard's 
successor, made Archbishop of Canterburj^ and who 
was one of the most inveterate of Richard's foes. 
More was a boy five years old when Richard fell, at 
Bosworth. In youth he became a member of INIorton's 
household at Canterbury, and he was educated vir- 
tually under the supervision of that primate. It is 
possible that Morton may have told him, and that 
he believed, a story of Richard's career. There is 
authority for the statement that Morton wrote, in 
Latin, a narrative of Richard's life, which at his death, 
in 1500, fell into the hands of IMore. The "Tragical 
History" which served to make Richard's name infa- 
mous was begun by More in 1513, and he left it unfin- 
ished at his death, in 1535. It was completed by 
Holinshed and Hall. 

It has generally been maintained, and the opinion 
seems to be contemporaneously accepted, that neither 
the cursory reader nor the scrupulous student of 
Shakespeare's "Historical Tragedy" is for any reason 
necessitated to consider anything except the Text. 
That would, perhaps, be a satisfactory method of 
reading or study for persons already familiarly 
acquainted with a complex period of English his- 
tory; it is not a satisfactory method for persons, 
naturally and necessarily a numerous class, who 



70 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

are not thus informed, and my acquaintance with 
actors and other theatrical students has led me to 
believe that a brief rehearsal of historical facts 
relative to the subject of Shakespeare's "King Rich- 
ard III." will be of practical service. 

The story, as told by him, is supposed to begin 
almost immediately after the battle of Tewkesbuiy, 
fought May 4, 1471, in which the house of York 
crushingly defeated the house of Lancaster, and to 
terminate with tlie baitle of Bos^vorth Field, fought 
on August 22, 1485. The actual period covered 
is, accordingly, fourteen years. Shakespeare seems 
to have designed that the historical, or pseudo-his- 
torical, incidents which he has illustrated should be 
viewed in a compressed group, and that the action 
should be confined w^ithin a brief limit of time, — 
possibly ^dtliin that of a single summer. P. A. 
Daniels, in his "time analysis" of this play, allots 
eleven days, with intervals, as the period rep- 
resented on the stage, and the total dramatic time 
as "within one month (?)." That, I beheve, is too 
short an allowance. Tewkesbury was fought in May. 
King Henry the Sixth died a few days thereafter. 
It would be in August, 1471, according to the drama- 
tist, that Glo'ster wooed and won Lady Anne. The 
kilhng of the Duke of Clarence did not occur till 1478, 
and King Edward the Fourth did not die till April 



KING RICHARD III. 71 

9, 1483. Edward the Fifth — with his uncle, Glo'ster, 
as Protector, — was nominally King from April 9 
to June 22, 1483. Richard was proclaimed King on 
June 26, and he and Anne, his Queen, were crowned, 
in London, at Westminster Abbey on July 16, 1483. 
Hastings, at the Tower, was slain on June 13, that 
year, and Rivers, Vaughan, and Grey had already 
suffered death. The Princes were then lodged in the 
Tower, ^nd their alleged murder occurred in August. 
Buckingham perished on the block, at Salisbury, in 
November, 1483. Richard's Queen died, at Middle- 
ham Castle, Yorkshire, March 16, 1485. The Earl 
of Richmond landed at Milford Haven, August 7, 
1485, and Richard was slain fifteen days later. Those 
events were arranged to the poet's hand, but he has 
presented them as closely sequent upon one another. 
Most of the difficulties in the way of a perfect 
unity, however, are overcome — certainly for stage 
purposes — if all these occurrences are assigned to 
the last year of Richard's life, — for the dramatist 
has, in fact, condensed the scattered occurrences of 
fourteen years, 1471 to 1485, and unfolded the 
motives and conduct of several lives in a work of 
action which, practically, can be illustrated within 
three hours. It is noticeable that throughout this 
tragedy the weather is summer and that most of the 
action proceeds by day. For the purpose of stage 



72 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

presentation it is possible and right to assume that 
it begins in May and ends in August, and that is 
the assumption upon which is founded the arrange- 
ment of, perhaps, the best stage version of the 
tragedy ever prepared, — ^that, namely, which was 
made by Edwin Booth. 

Brief consideration of the relationship, personality, 
and age of the principal characters will also be of 
service. Queen Elizabeth is the wife, afterward the 
widow, of King Edward the Fourth. Her maiden 
name was Elizabeth Woodville, or Wydevil. She 
was the daughter of Sir Richard Wydevil, and was 
first married to Sir John Grey, of Groby, a Lan- 
castrian, who fell at the battle of St. Albans, 1455. 
She was considerably older than King Edward and 
she had been nine years a widow when, in 1464, she 
became his wife. She was a woman of great beauty. 
After she became Queen her kindred were invested 
with rank and titles. The Earl Rivers of this tragedy, 
Anthony Woodville, one of the most learned and 
accomplished men of his time, was her brother, and 
Lord Grey and the Marquis of Dorset were her sons, 
by her first husband. She had, by King Edward 
the Fourth, three children, Elizabeth, Edward, and 
Richard. The sons are the Princes, Edward and 
Richard, whom Glo'ster is said to have caused to be 
murdered in the Tower, but of whose fate History 



KING RICHARD III. 73 

does not afford authentic information. The daughter, 
Ehzabeth, became, in 1486, the wife of Henry, Earl 
of Richmond, then King Henry the Seventh. Evi- 
dence has been adduced that King Edward the Fourth, 
prior to his union with Ehzabeth Woodville Grey, 
had been privately married to Lady Eleanor Talbot 
Butler, daughter of Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, and 
widow of Lord Butler, Baron of Sudeley. If that 
evidence can be trusted, he was a bigamist, his 
children by his Queen, Elizabeth, were illegitimate, 
and, upon his death, his brother Richard possessed a 
clear title to the crown. 

The Duchess of York is the mother of Edward, 
Glo'ster, and Clarence; Queen Margaret is the widow 
of King Henry the Sixth. She was a woman of 
great ability and of a formidable, warlike character. 
She defeated in battle Glo'ster's father, the Duke of 
York, and caused his head, surmounted by a paper 
crown, to be affixed to the battlements of the City 
of York. She was captured by King Edward the 
Fourth soon after the battle of Tewkesbury, was 
held in captivity during five years, and was then 
ransomed by King Louis the Eleventh of France. 
She died, in Anjou, in 1482. She is the Cassandra of 
Shakespeare's tragedy, and there is not in poetic 
literature a fiercer strain of invective than that which 
Shakespeare has put into her mouth. 



74 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

Lady Anne is, first, the widow of Edward, Prince 
of Wales, — son of King Henry the Sixth, and Queen 
Margaret, — who was killed in the battle of Tewkes- 
bury: some historians declare he was slain by Hast- 
ings and Dorset after that battle. She was the second 
daughter of Richard Neville, the great Earl of War- 
wick, surnamed "the King-Maker." It is noted that 
she was only betrothed to King Henry's son, not 
actually married to him, and was only fourteen years 
old when that betrothal occurred. She became the 
wife of Glo'ster, and died in 1485. Her grave is in 
Westminster Abbey, near the entrance to the chapel 
of Henry the Seventh. The inscription on the stone 
that covers it has been obliterated by time. 

Henry the Sixth appears as a character in Gibber's 
version of "King Richard III." and in that made and 
used by Richard Mansfield, the scene of his death 
being taken from the Third Part of Shakespeare's 
(reputed) tragedy of "King Henry VI." — but he does 
not occur in the original. He was the predecessor of 
King Edward the Fourth upon the English throne. 
He founded King's College, at Cambridge, and Eton 
College, near Windsor. 

Edward the Fourth came to the throne of England 
in 1461, at the age of 20. He was one of the hand- 
somest, most luxurious, and most licentious kings 
of whom history preserves a record. He died in 



KING RICHARD III. 75 

the forty-second year of his age and the twenty- 
third of his reign. He was buried at Windsor, and 
near to his royal dust was laid the decapitated body 
of the gallant, brilliant, dissolute Lord Hastings. 

Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond, who succeeded 
Richard as King Henry the Seventh, was, on the 
father's side, a descendant from Theodore Tudor, 
a Welsh brewer, whose son, Owen Tudor, maiTied 
Katherine, widow of King Henry the Fifth; and, 
on the mother's side, a descendant, by an illegiti- 
mate branch, — afterward, however, legally declared 
legitimate, — from John of Gaunt, the fourth child of 
King Edward the Third. He was haughty, peremp- 
tory, austere, and avaricious. He accumulated great 
wealth. He permitted the decapitation, for alleged 
treason, of Sir William Stanley, who had, probably, 
been the savior of his life, when personally attacked 
by Richard, at Bosworth Field. He disliked his wife, 
Elizabeth of York, and they led an unhappy hfe. 
He died of consumption, in his palace at Richmond. 
His tomb is in the beautiful chapel, in Westminster 
Abbey, built by his command and under liis super- 
vision. 

The title to the English Crown during the 
Wars of the Roses inhered in the house of York. 
King Henry the Fourth, who deposed his cousin. King 
Richard the Second, was a usurper, and it was he 



76 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

who thus caused the subsequent mischief. When King 
Richard the Second, "hacked to death," or starved, at 
Pomfret Castle, had ceased to Hve, the crown should 
have passed to the line of Clarence, the third child of 
King Edward the Third, and not, as in fact it did, 
to the line of his fourth child, John of Gaunt. 

The house of Plantagenet — of which King Edward 
the Fourth, Clarence, Glo'ster, and the Princes, 
Edward and Richard, were members — sprang from 
the roj^al house of Anjou. The name of Planta- 
genet was bestowed on one of the ancestors of the 
line, either from the fact that he wore in his bonnet 
a sprig of the broom, planta genista^ or from the 
fact that he had done penance by scourging his body 
with a whip made of that plant. The last of the 
Plantagenets were Edward, son of the Duke of 
Clarence, beheaded in the reign of King Henry the 
Seventh, and his sister, the Countess of Salisbury, 
beheaded in the reign of King Heniy the Eighth. 

The following passage from Sir Thomas More's 
"Tragical History" conveys instructive suggestions 
as to the character and feelings of Richard, as viewed 
by his detractors: 

"I have heard, by credible report of such as were secret 
with his chamberers, that after this abominable deed" [the 
murder of the Princes, his nephews] "he never had quiet 
in his mind; he never thought himself sure. When he went 



KING RICHARD III. 77 

abroad his eyes whirled about, his body privily fenced, his 
hand ever on his dagger, his countenance and manner like 
one always ready to strike again. He took ill rest at night; 
lay long waking and musing; sore wearied with care and 
watch, he rather slumbered than slept. Troubled with fear- 
ful dreams, suddenly sometimes started he up, leaped out of 
his bed, and ran about the chamber. So was his restless heart 
continually tossed and tumbled, with the tedious impression 
and strong remembrance of his most abominable deed." 

In the chapel of King Henry the Seventh, in West- 
minster Abbey, stands a little altar, which was placed 
by King Charles the Second, to commemorate the 
Princes. The inscription upon it, in Latin, is as 
follows : 

"Here lie the remains of Edward V., King of England, 
and Richard, Duke of York, who, being confined in the Tower, 
and there stifled with pillows, were privately and meanly 
buried, by order of their pei^fidious uncle, Richard, the 
usurper. Their bones, long inquired after and wished for, 
after lying 191 years in the rubbish of the stairs, were, 
on the 17th of July, 1674, by undoubted proofs, discovered, 
being buried deep in that place. Charles II., pitying their 
unhappy fate, ordered these unfortunate princes to be laid 
among the relics of their ancestors, in the year 1678, and 
the thirtieth of his reign." 



t3' 



The place where those bones were, by alleged 
"undoubted proofs, discovered" is a recess under the 
winding stairs that lead up to St. John's Chapel, in 
the White Tower. Miles Forrest and John Dighton 



78 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

are said to have confessed that they murdered the 
Princes, but they were not punished for their crime. 
They said that they had "obeyed their King's com- 
mand," conveyed to them by Sir James Tyrrel, and 
it was a doctrine of King Henry the Seventh that 
the King's command ought always to be impUcitly 
obeyed, never questioned. Tyrrel was beheaded, by 
the order of King Henry the Seventh, for treasonable 
association with the rebellion of the Duke of Suffolk, 
in 1502. 

The last moments of King Richard are thus de- 
scribed by Hume: 

"The intrepid tyrant, sensible of his desperate situation, 
cast his eye around the field, and descrying his rival at no 
great distance, he drove against him with fury, in hopes that 
either Henry's death or his own would decide the victory 
between them. He killed with his own hand Sir William 
Brandon, standard-bearer to the Earl; he dismounted Sir 
John Cheyney; he was now within reach of Richmond him- 
self, who declined not to combat, when Sir William Stanley, 
breaking in with his troops, surrounded Richard, who, fight- 
ing bravely to the last moment, was overwhelmed by numbers, 
and perished by a fate too mild and honorable for his mul- 
tiplied and detestable enormities. . . . The body of Richard 
was found on the field, covered with dead enemies, and all 
besmeared with blood. It was thrown carelessly across a horse, 
was carried to Leicester, amidst the shouts of the insulting 
spectators, and was interred in the Grey Friars' church of 
that place." 



KING RICHARD III. 79 

The ages of most of the characters in the tragedy 
can be nearly ascertained. Richard is 33; Richmond, 
28; King Edward the Fourth, 41; Clarence, 29; Rivers, 
41 ; the Bishop of Ely, 75 ; Prince Edward, 12 ; Prince 
Richard, 10; Queen Elizabeth, 48; Queen Margaret) 
59; the Duchess of York, about 60. JJady Anne died 
at the age of 28. 

For the actor the text of Shakespeare is the arbitrary 
guide in undertaking to impersonate Richard the Third 
as drawn in Shakespeare's play, and in Shakespeare's 
play Richard is represented as an incarnation of craft, 
treachery, cruelty, and heaven- defying wickedness, 
not, however, without conscience and some of the usual 
attributes of humanity. It is desirable, though per- 
haps it is not essential, that the actor of Richard 
should be acquainted with every fact ascertainable 
relative to the actual character, aspect, and conduct 
of the man; for the reason that such comprehension 
of him might tend to augment weight, authority, and 
sincerity in an embodiment of even a wrong concep- 
tion of him. It certainly is essential that every student 
of Shakespeare's play should bear in mind its gross 
inconformity to ascertained facts of Richard's life. 

Francis Bacon, although he wrote in the time of 
Queen Elizabeth, granddaughter of King Henry the 
Seventh, and wrote like the servile courtier that he 
was, nevertheless declared of King Richard the Third 



80 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

that he was "jealous of the honor of the English 
nation, and likewise a good law-maker for the ease and 
solace of the common people," adding, however, in the 
mean spirit of political detraction, that Richard's 
motive was not the purpose of doing justice to his sub- 
jects, but that of winning popularity. In fact, Richard 
relieved the English people of an unjust, extortionate 
taxation; caused the laws of England to be printed 
in the English language, and thus made them accessible 
for the first time; ordained and encouraged the free 
importation of books into his kingdom; fostered the 
arts, particularly those of printing, acting, and music 
(before he had ascended the throne he had organized 
a company of actors, to perform in his service, and 
after he became King he made a special point of 
assembhng singers for Ms entertainment), and 
throughout his career strove to advance civilization. 
Minute inquiry into the history of King Richard 
the Third educes material facts showing that Shake- 
speare's portrayal of that prince is a fabric of 
the imagination, reared on a basis of calumny. 
Edward, Prince of Wales, was not murdered, but was 
killed, as other soldiers were killed, in battle, "in the 
field by Tewkesbury." King Henry the Sixth, who 
had become half imbecile, died of disease, aggravated 
by grief, and not by the hand of an assassin. No 
evidence exists proving that the young princes, Edward 




Fr-,-n clJi iJ/ta.«/ l^r/^/l/ul/ ^'uiMj/u , , ' A''f/.if//^/;i// 7^////, 



RICHARD THE THIRD, KING OF ENGLAND 



KING RICHARD III. 81 

and Richard, sons of King Edward the Fourth, were 
murdered, a reasonable probability being that one of 
them died, in the Tower, of disease, and that the other 
was privily sent out of the kingdom, and reappeared 
later, in the person of Perkin Warbeck. Queen Anne, 
wife of King Richard the Third, died of consump- 
tion, her demise having been precipitated by sorrow 
for the sudden death of their only child, Edward, 
and not, as Richard's enemies, at the time, whispered, 
or declared, and as Shakespeare darkly insinuates, 
by the criminal contrivance of her husband. The Duke 
of Clarence was put to death by his fierce and cruel 
brother, King Edward the Fourth, who distrusted and 
hated him, as also did Edward's wife, Queen Elizabeth 
(Woodville), and her numerous relatives and partisans, 
— Richard being innocent of complicity with that 
merciless deed. Lord Hastings was slain because 
Richard knew him to be a political opponent and 
suspected him of being privily implicated in a plot 
to frustrate the protectorate and assassinate the 
Protector. Richard loved his mother, "the Rose of 
Raby," and he was at all times much under her influ- 
ence; and also he loved his wife Anne Neville, and 
when he became a widower he never entertained the 
purpose, but publicly and officially disavowed it, of 
wedding his niece Elizabeth, the princess whom sub- 
sequently the astute, crafty, avaricious King Henry 



82 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

the Seventh took to wife, in order to fortify his 
usurped title to the EngHsh crown. In almost every 
particular, although he was a stern ruler and a fierce, 
sanguinary, ruthless antagonist. King Richard the 
Third was literally the reverse of the man whom 
Shakespeare's tragedy has blazoned as a monster, for 
the lasting execration of the world. 

Richard was not deformed, except that one of his 
shoulders was a little higher than the other. He was 
of short stature, slender in figure, and possessed of 
uncommon strength. His neck was short, and habit- 
ually his head was slightly inclined forward. His 
face was of aquiline cast, his features were regular, 
and he had the large nose of the Plantagenet family. 
His eyes were dark and brilliant. His complexion 
was olive, his hair dark brown, and his cheeks were a 
little hollow. His voice was notable for placidity and 
sweetness. He was fond of rich apparel and cus- 
tomarily wore magnificent garments. He was nervous 
and restless, as shown by his habit of sheathing and 
unsheathing his dagger, and of sliding a ring off and 
on one of his fingers — the third finger of his left 
hand. He was an expert, graceful dancer, a proficient 
horseman, and in battle his expedition, agility, valor, 
and prowess were extraordinary. As a qualifying 
fact touching his alleged "deformity," it might be 
remembered that, according to apparently authentic 



KING RICHARD III. 83 

chronicle, he could, and did, when accoutred in full 
armor, leap to the back of his horse without touching 
foot to stirrup. 

THE TEXT. 

The text of Shakespeare's play of "King Richard 
III." is an eclectic one, taken partly from the First 
and Third Quartos, 1597, 1602, and partly from the 
First Folio, 1623. The text of the Folio reveals 
alterations of the putative original, not, it is sup- 
posed, made by the author, but by the actors either 
at the preliminary tavern reading of the play, 
which was of usual occurrence, or in the processes of 
rehearsal and performance during many years. It has 
been ascertained and recorded that "there are about 
one hundred and twenty new lines introduced in the 
Folio" (Knight), and that "the Quartos contain 
important passages which are not found in the Folio, 
while the Folio, on the other hand, supplies passages, 
no less important, which are wanting in the Quartos" 
(Dyce) . A justifiable inference would seem to be that 
the world does not, and never can, possess the text of 
"King Richard III." exactly as Shakespeare wrote it. 

Henry Irving caused a book to be printed of 
Gibber's alteration of Shakespeare's tragedy, in which, 
by the use of inks of different colors, the lines known 
or believed to be exactly those of Shakespeare were 



84 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

shown, in contradistinction to the lines selected by 
Gibber from other plays by Shakespeare, namely, 
"King Henry IV., Part One and Part Two"; 
"King Henry VI., Part One, Part Two, and 
Part Three"; "King Richard II."; and "King 
Henry V."; and from lines original with Gibber. 
Among Gibber's verses the most ambitious is the 
speech declaring, "Gonscience! 'tis our coin; we live 
by parting with it." The statement put into the mouth 
of Richard, "I've lately had two spiders crawling upon 
my startled hopes," etc., and the commandment, "Get 
me a coffin full of holes," etc., are Gibber's, — and not 
likely to be mistaken for Shakespeare's. Three of 
Gibber's lines, however, are generally supposed to 
occur in the original: "Off with his head! So much 
for Buckingham!" "Gonscience, avaunt! Richard's 
himself again!" and "A little flattery sometimes does 
well." Goarse as it is. Gibber's version of Shake- 
speare's play was finally approved, for practical use, 
by both Henry Irving and Edwin Booth, consummate 
masters of their art, after each of them had made the 
experiment of producing the original in a condensed 
form. Neither of them, however, reverted to the use 
of the Gibber play. Both of them believed, and 
several times declared, in conversation with me, that 
Gibber's version is more directly effective than the 
original is, upon the average public taste. 1 disagree 



KING RICHARD III. 85 

with that opinion, but I think it important to remem- 
ber that Gibber's version held the stage, to the exclu- 
sion of the original, for 121 consecutive years, and 
that it is still preferred and used by several actors. 

The first attempt to restore Shakespeare's tragedy 
to the stage, even in a partial form, was made by 
Macready, at Covent Garden, March 12, 1821, that 
great actor impersonating Richard, with Mrs. 
Faucit, mother of Helena Faucit, afterward Lady 
Martin, as Queen Elizabeth. The attempt did not 
succeed; that is, the play did not please the public, 
and it was withdrawn after a few performances had 
been given. 

Old votaries of the theatre — such, at least, as have 
obtained any considerable experience of that institu- 
tion — are aware of the manner in which within the last 
fifty years Richard has usually been represented. The 
notion of the conventional "tragedian" has been that 
Richard is "a part to tear a cat in, to make all split," 
and accordingly the stage has often been the scene for 
tiresome display of a scowling, mugging, ranting creat- 
ure of extravagant deformity, as distinct from nature 
as a nightmare is from sense. The number of actors 
who have assumed the part of Richard is prodigious, 
but the number of actors who have presented him as a 
possible and interesting human being, and not as a 
monstrosity, is few. 



86 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

THE FIRST RICHARD. 

The first performer of Richard was Burbage, but 
nothing is known of his method of acting the part or 
of the dress he wore. The anonymous elegy on that 
actor's death, — a composition consisting of eighty-six 
Hues of heroic verse which, having long existed in 
manuscript, was first published in 1825, — mentions 
Crookback as one of the characters in which 
he excelled, and intimates that when he died 
that character, among others, died with him; 
a form of demise frequently named in theatrical 
memoirs. 

Authentic record declares that neither Shakespeare's 
tragedy nor any alteration of it was acted between 
1660 and 1710, — a period covering the last fifty years 
of Thomas Betterton's life. In 1667, however, Better- 
ton acted Richard, not in Shakespeare's tragedy, but 
in a play called "The English Princess, or the 
Death of Richard the Third," by John Caryll, a 
person who in later years was secretary to Queen 
Mary, wife of King James the Second, and who is 
agreeably remembered as having suggested to Pope 
the subject of that poet's exquisite work of fancy, 
"The Rape of the Lock." Pepys saw the first per- 
formance of "The English Princess," and in his 
"Diary" designates it "a most sad, melancholy play, 



KING RICHARD III. 87 

and pretty good, but nothing eminent in it." Better- 
ton's acting, as Richard, seems to have been excellent. 
Downes, a principal authority as to the Betterton 
period, commends it by implication, but does not 
describe it. 

GIBBER AND HIS VERSION. 

Colley Gibber's alteration of Shakespeare's "King 
Richard III." was first produced July 9, 1700, at 
Drury Lane, and Gibber appeared as Richard, giving 
a performance which was accounted weak, and even 
ridiculous. The merit of Gibber as an actor consisted 
in his talent for comedy: as a tragedian he appears to 
have been a conspicuous failure. In his story of his 
performance of Richard he declares that he acted the 
part as he supposed that it would have been acted by 
Samuel Sandford, one of his contemporaries, and he 
describes Sandford as a man who "had sometimes an 
uncouth stateliness in his motion, a harsh and sullen 
pride of speech, a meditating brow, a stern aspect, 
occasionally changing into an almost ludicrous tri- 
umph over all goodness and virtue; and from thence 
falling into the most assuasive gentleness and soothing 
candor of a designing heart." When first presented. 
Gibber's alteration of the play had been shorn of its 
whole First Act, which the Master of the Revels 
refused to license, on the ground that its portrayal of 



88 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

the distresses of King Henry the, Sixth was impolitic, 
because it might prove a reminder to "weak people" 
of the misfortunes of the fugitive King James the 
Second, then h\dng in exile at Paris. Several years 
passed before the whole of Gibber's version was per- 
mitted on the stage. From the time of Burbage to 
that of Gibber's venture the history of the play is a 
blank. 



DAVID GARRICK. 



i 



The first unequivocally fine embodiment of Richard 
the Third of which authentic description exists was 
that presented by David Garrick, at Goodman's Fields 
Theatre, London, October 19, 1741, when he acted 
that part for the first time. The important later per- 
formances of Bichard, without exception, have been 
more or less affected by knowledge of that example. 
Garrick unquestionably blazed the path for John 
Philip Kemble, who was twenty-two years old when 
Garrick retired from the stage, and for George Fred- 
erick Gooke, Edmund Kean, Junius Brutus Booth, 
William G. Macready, Edwin Forrest, and their 
successors, — the inspiring, enduring magic of his 
method being vitality of impersonation combined with 
brilliancy of executive art. 

Garrick astonished his public by following a course 
which in our time would not astonish anybody; 




ft^ ^ 



KING RICHARD III. 89 

that is to say, he spoke, as far as effect is con- 
cerned, naturally, not rhetorically, and he acted nat- 
urally, not artificially. It is not meant that he was 
a photographer, — no one of his biographers conveys 
that impression, — but he concealed his mechanism, he 
abjured the formal declamation which had been cus- 
tomary, he projected himself into the character, and 
he caused the effect of nature by a judicious and 
expert use of art. The stage version of the play 
that he presented was Gibber's, and in his employ- 
ment of it he seems to have made almost all the 
"points" that have been made by his successors. On 
his first entrance he presented, in face, person, and 
demeanor, an image of seetliing vitality, dangerous 
force, sardonic humor, and smiling menace. His 
performance was marked by incessant variety. His 
question, "What do they in the North?'^ was 
shot forth with frightful celerity and rage. His 
action and delivery in the Tent or Dream Scene 
expressed a frenzy of horror, fear, agony, and conflict, 
interpenetrated with the furious courage of despera- 
tion. Abundant contemporary testimony designates 
the impersonation as wonderfully brilliant. Garrick 
was the first of the actors of Richard to employ a 
joyous chuckle of sardonic delight, when vociferating 
"Off with his head! So much for Buckingham," 
which, copied by Cooke and then by Kean, and thus 



90 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

transmitted to succeeding actors, has survived and is 
still used. Investigation of the chronicles of Gar- 
rick's acting ascertains that he was remarkable for 
"natural impetuosity, warmth of speech, and energy 
of action," and that he excelled in parts which involve 
"anger, resentment, disdain, horror, despair, madness, 
convulsive throes, and dying agonies": it is, there- 
fore, not difficult to understand his greatness as King 
Richard the Third. Without doubt he set the 
example, and it was not alone his art that con- 
quered, but his genius. The spirit that was in the 
man is indicated by words that Tobias Smollett 
wrote about him, mentioning "the sweetness and 
variety of his tones, the irresistible magic of his eye, 
the fire and variety of his action, the elegance of 
his attitudes, and the whole pathos of his expression." 
Garrick's Richard has been characterized as "a vulgar 
assassin." William Hogarth said to him, referring to 
his widely contrasted impersonations of Ahel Drugger 
(in Ben Jonson's "The Alchemist") and Richard the 
Third, "You are in your element when begrimed with 
dirt or up to your elbows in blood." Garrick's 
costume, as Richard, was fanciful and without even 
the pretence of correctness, while the actors who 
cooperated with him in the representation of the 
tragedy wore court dresses, of the time of King 
George the Second. 



KING RICHARD III. 91 

JOHN PHILIP KEMBLE. 

It does not appear that John Philip Kemble inter- 
preted the character with any notable comprehensive- 
ness or power. He played Richard at a time (1783) 
when Garrick's performance was still remembered, 
and the impression that he made was comparatively 
faint. He was innately princelike in manner, and 
he pleased fastidious taste by his consistently aris- 
tocratic bearing and his felicitous subtlety not only 
of inflection in delivery of the text but of bland sug- 
gestiveness of the craft of the character. Sir Walter 
Scott records that Kemble argued (and this intimates 
the essential quality of his performance) that Richard, 
"being of high descent and breeding, ought not to 
be vulgar in his appearance or coarse in his cruelty," 
— certainly a correct inference as to Shakespeare's 
Richard, but not as to Gibber's. Macready, one of 
the most discriminative of critics of acting, says of 
Kemble that his limbs were not supple and that his 
style was statuesque, — in which case, naturally, he 
must have been hampered in the part of Richard, 
which imperatively requires, at many points, celerity, 
and at all times flexibility. Imagination sees Kemble 
in the grandeur of Coriolanus and the pathetic 
solemnity of Penruddoch, not in the volcanic pas- 
sion of Richard the Third. 



94 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

and he enunciated "Off with his head!" — the doom 
of the captured Buckingham, — with a riotous chuckle 
of exultant hatred. His face seems not to have been 
one well trained to convey a perfect impression of 
plausibilitj^, yet it is difficult to determine, from inspec- 
tion of the several portraits of him which exist, pre- 
cisely what his countenance might have revealed. The 
face of even such a man as Gibber's Richard would not 
be always an index to his evil mind. Gibber's best bit 
of invention is that which makes Richard, on entering 
the throneroom after the death of King Edward, and 
on observing the grief of the company, apply a hand- 
kerchief to his eyes and murmur aside: "With all my 
heart! I'll not be out of fashion!" At such a point 
as that Gooke was an actor certain to excel, and it is 
probable that he did greatly excel when speaking 
Richard's explicit, comprehensive summary of his own 
character, in the lines transferred by Gibber from 
"King Henry VI., Part Three," Act III., Sc. 2: 

" Why, I can smile, and murder while I smile, 
And cry content to that which grieves my heart, 
And wet my cheeks with artificial tears. 
And frame my face to all occasions." 

Gooke, as Richard, wore, for court dress, a doublet 
fastened by a broad, jewelled belt, a short cloak 
edged with ermine, trunk-hose, pointed shoes., and a 



KING RICHARD III. 95 

small, close-fitting velvet hat turned up in front and 
embellished with a tall plume. Around his neck he 
placed a narrow, pleated, white ruff and a broad 
ribbon sustaining an Order. At his side was a rapier, 
depending from a shoulder-belt incrusted with jewels. 
The face was clean-shaven, except for short, narrow 
side-whiskers and a small moustache and chin-tuft. 
The hair was short. In the latter part of the play, 
armor necessarily was substituted for the court dress. 

EDMUND KEAN. 

Edmund Kean, whose personation of Richard was 
accounted wonderful, was acquainted with the Garrick 
tradition as to the acting of the part, and he had seen 
Cooke on the provincial stage before either Cooke 
or himself had appeared in London. In 1787 Cooke 
acted once in London, for some person's benefit, but 
he did not formally and successfully appear in that 
capital till 1800, when he was in his forty-fifth year. 
Kean was on the scene there as a child and as an 
obscure youth, but he first appeared there prominently 
in 1814, when he was twenty-seven. The comedian 
George Fawcett Rowe (1835-1889) many years ago 
told me that his father, resident in Exeter, had been 
acquainted with Kean, and that Kean had said to 
him, "I have the style of Cooke; but nobody will 



06 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

notice it, because I am so much smaller." The almost 
fanatical admiration that Kean felt for Cooke is 
recorded in the memoirs of both of them, and 
remembrance of it seems to justify credence 
that to some extent Kean truly was a disciple 
of that singular genius. In youth every actor has 
a model. 

Cooke died in New York in 1812, and Kean, on 
the occasion of his first visit to that city, in 1820, 
caused his remains to be removed from a vault beneath 
St. Paul's Church and buried in the churchyard, and 
likewise placed a monument there, which still stands 
at Cooke's grave. The story that Kean took the 
forefinger bones of Cooke's right hand, carried them 
to England, had them wired together and hung upon 
his parlor wall, and made such an ado about the 
relic that Mrs. Kean finally became disgusted and 
threw it away, has long been in circulation and is 
known to be true. To what extent Kean modelled 
his acting on that of Cooke it would be impossible 
to judge. Each of those actors was, obviously, 
of a turbulent nature, much given to tremendous 
outbursts of passion, but no men could be more 
dissimilar than they were in physical constitution 
and appearance. Cooke's face could exceptionally 
well express the evil passions. Kean's features 
were regular and handsome, and while his face and 



I 




Courtesy of Elsie Leslie Winter 

EDMUND KEAN AS KIXG RICHARD THE THIRD 

FROM A MEZZOTINT 



KING RICHARD III. 07 

person comported perfectly, as he guided and used 
them, with the terrible characters of Richard the 
Third and Sir Giles Overreach, they were made to 
suit equally well with those of the loving Octavian 
and the melancholy, pathetic Stranger. Cooke was 
robust, while Kean was slender, and his height was 
only five feet and four inches. 

Kean's acting, in general, and in particular his acting 
of Richard, has been extolled, by competent authori- 
ties, to such an extent of enthusiasm that inquiring 
judgment becomes perplexed in the presence of a 
multiplicity of adulation. "Just returned from seeing 
Kean in Richard/' — so wrote Byron to Moore, Febru- 
ary 19, 1814, — "By Jove! he is a soul! Life — Nature 
— Truth — without exaggeration or diminution. Kem- 
ble's Hamlet is perfect, but Hamlet is not Nature, 
Richard is a man, and Kean is RichardT The opinion 
thus expressed, if viewed as criticism, is worthless, 
Hamlet being at least quite as much Nature as Richard 
is, and as much a man; but viewed as indicative of the 
effect produced upon a poet of marvellous genius by 
an actor of kindred poetic sensibility it is instructive. 
Kean appears to have been the originator of the 
practice, which was customary with Edwin Forrest, 
John McCullough, and Thomas Keene, when acting 
Richard, of causing him to protrude the lower lip, — 
probably supposing that the facial expression was 



98 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

thereby made more resolute and savage. In the 
Wooing Scene with Lady Anne he hfted her veil to 
observe the changes in her face while he was speaking, 
— a piece of stage business wliich savors of absurdity, 
but which, nevertheless, has found commendation. 
Hazlitt's encomium of Kean's acting in that scene, 
happily designated the spirit and defined the charm 
of it, in saying that by his action, voice, and eye, he 
finely marked the progress of "wily adulation" and 
"encroaching humility." 

Kean's principal dress, as Richard, consisted of 
garments similar to those worn by Cooke — trunk- 
hose, doublet, ornamental cloak, and ribbon with an 
Order on it; but he wore top-boots, his hat was shaped 
like a toadstool, and his wig was made of curly, black 
hair, somewhat thick. In his right hand he carried, 
during a part of the play, a military truncheon. The 
deformity of the figure was indicated by disproportion 
of the left shoulder. Kean's costume, as noted, is that 
which he wore after the Duke of Glo'ster had become 
King. Kean's stage business as Richard was extraor- 
dinary for diversification and expressive intelligence. 
His thoughtful, absorbed demeanor when, pre- 
liminary to the terrific Dream Scene, on the night 
before the furious encounter on Bosworth Field, he 
traced upon the ground, with the point of his sword, 
the plan of battle, is remembered and recorded as 



KING RICHARD III. 99 

having had a wonderfully impressive effect. The per- 
sonation was animated by a dominant, buoyant, 
electrical, thrilling spirit. The dying King's frantic 
thrusts with his naked arm, as though he still held 
his sword, after he had been struck down, mortally 
wounded, in the combat with Richmond^ were sinister 
and terrible: that business has reappeared in the per- 
formances of many later actors. 



JUNIUS BRUTUS BOOTH. 

The renown of the elder Booth as Richard was 
great in his lifetime, and the tradition of his astound- 
ing performance of the part still survives. Booth was 
a mild, reticent, modest, unpretentious man, whose 
aspect and customary demeanor in private were calm, 
dignified, and reserved. I have never forgotten the 
thrill of dread that was imparted by his baleful aspect, 
his incisive, sonorous voice, and his evil demeanor 
as Pescara, in "The Apostate." Persons who acted 
with him when he played Richard have favored 
me with descriptive recollection of his performance 
of that part, and in several instances they have declared 
that at first sight of him they thought him insignifi- 
cant, but, on seeing for the first time his impersonation 
of Richard, they were not merely astonished, but 
completely overwhelmed with amazement, by his rev- 



100 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

elation of a prodigious force and an impetuous, fiery, 
terrible passion, of the capability of which nothing in 
his appearance and deportment had given them the 
slightest hint. In the opening scenes he was com- 
paratively tame, no doubt intending that the char- 
acter, under the stress of continually changing circum- 
stances, should evince itself gradually, and preparing 
the way for a brilliant effect of contrast when he 
became completely aroused. In the succeeding 
passages of storm and fury he was stupendous. That 
accompHshed actor John Sleeper Clarke, — who mar- 
ried the tragedian's daughter Asia, — told me that 
nothing could exceed in the effect of terror Booth's 
aspect, action, and delivery when he said: 

"What do they in the North, 
When they should serve their sovereign in the West? " 

Among the recorded peculiarities of Booth's per- 
formance, mention is made of his slow entrance, long 
stride, and self-communing delivery of the opening 
speech, in which his elocution was exceptionally elab- 
orate. His tones were varied to suit each figure of 
speech. He pronounced the word "ocean" as one of 
three syllables, and he gave a rising inflection to 
the phrase "glorious summer," as if to suggest a 
flood of radiance by means of sound. He maintained 
a watchful, crafty, specious, beguiling demeanor until 



KING RICHARD III. 101 

the crown had been gained, and then he assumed the 
imperial manner of royalty. He restored to the text 
the questions "Is the chair empty? Is the sword 
unsway'd? Is the king dead?" and he delivered them 
in a rising torrent of mingled scorn and passion, and 
with intense energy. From the moment of the Kings's 
outset to meet rebellion till the moment of his death on 
the field of battle he was like a whirlwind, and he 
carried all before him. Edwin Booth, writing about 
his father, whom he loved and well understood, thus 
summarized judgment: "His expressions of terror 
and remorse were painful in the extreme, his hatred 
and revenge were devilish, but his tenderness was 
exquisitely human. At his best he soared higher 
into the realm of Art sublime than any of his suc- 
cessors have reached, and to those who saw him then 
it was not credible that any of his predecessors could 
have surpassed him." 



WILLIAM CHARLES MACREADY. 

Macready played Richard for the first time in 
London in 1819, at Covent Garden, appearing in the 
Gibber version of the tragedy. His success with the 
public was decisive. He had played the part five 
years before at Bath. Critical opinion on the subject 
was various, but in effect it was favorable. The 



102 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

actor's method in the wooing of Lady Anne was 
commended for winning sincerity, — ^the dissimulation 
not having been variegated by any gleams of sar- 
casm. His feverish, executive promptitude in direct- 
ing the disposal of the bodies of the murdered Princes 
was essentially tragic. Leigh Hunt specified the 
exact spirit of the performance, intimating that 
it was marked by ardent, sanguine gayety. That, in 
Gibber's arrangement of the play, is a pervasive attri- 
bute of the character, for Gibber's Richard is not 
at any moment till the Dream Scene shown as a man 
capable of sensibility, and his anguish in that scene is 
as unwarranted as it is unexpected, whereas Shake- 
speare's Richard, long before he is shaken by his 
mother's curse, speaks of himself as "so far in blood 
that sin will pluck on sin," and while declaring that 
" Tear-falling pity dwells not in this eye," has made 
it clearly evident that he is conscious of his wicked- 
ness, apprehensive of its punishment, and therefore 
vulnerable to retribution. On the occasion, already 
mentioned, of Macready's treatment of "King 
Richard III." in a partly restored state (1821), his 
acting caused a thrilling effect, at the moment 
when, in the Gouncil Scene, Richard bares his with- 
ered arm and pronounces the doom of Hastings. The 
burst of fury was electrical. Gooke, and later Kean, 
had done this, before Macready did it. The version 



KING RICHARD III. 103 

of the play then used by Macready was one made by 
"Mr. Swift of the Crown Jewel Office" and improved 
by the actor himself, but it did not in fact very 
widely differ from that of Cibber. The advertisement 
of it referred to Cibber's alteration as "ingenious." 
If it really were so there would, — as remarked by 
the sensible and caustic Genest, — have been no reason 
for reverting to the original. Shakespeare's tragedy 
is impracticable, as a whole, chiefly because of its 
great length. 

EDWIN FORREST. 

Edwin Forrest, acting Richard, was burly, loud, 
and violent, presenting a transparent villain. He 
was jocosely exultant and strongly effective in the 
expression of sardonic irony. His representation of 
Richard's nightmare was correctly and effectively 
attended with convulsive struggles and with tremen- 
dous blows at the air, significant of contention with 
phantoms of armed enemies. He specially approved 
of his acting in the scene of Richard's wooing of 
Lady Anney in which he laid great stress upon animal 
magnetism. In conversation with John McCullough 
he particularly called the attention of that actor to 
what he deemed his "invincibility" in that passage, 
and McCullough long afterward mentioned the 



104. SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

matter to me. McCuUough, who greatly liked and 
admired Forrest, was for some time a member of his 
theatrical company, and his anecdotes of him were 
often happily illustrative of the veteran's peculiar 
character. 

The principal dress of Forrest as Richard com- 
prised a belted doublet; a cloak, with a heavy fringe 
of ermine ; knee-breeches ; low-cut velvet shoes ; a velvet 
hat studded with jewels and garnished with long 
plumes; a thick, black wig from which long curls 
depended, reaching to the shoulders; a dress sword, 
and leather gauntlets. The doublet was open on the 
bosom, showing a white, ruffled shirt. The Order of 
the Garter was worn, as customary. The face was, 
as usual in that actor's scheme of "make-up," pro- 
vided with a moustache and a chin-tuft, and it bore 
no resemblance to any portrait of the actual Richard. 
In the Battle Scene he wore spangled armor. One of 
Forrest's professional satellites was an eccentric actor 
named Andrew Jackson Allen (1776-1853), who 
owned and used a patent for ornamenting leather 
with gold and silver, and on the occasion of some 
little dispute with Forrest he astonished that formi- 
dable tragedian by the inquiry: "What in hell would 
your Richard be without my spangles?"' If the 
exasperated satellite meant to intimate that the per- 
formance of Richard by the athletic actor consisted 







UXIUS BRUTUS BOOTH AS Kl^G RICHARD THE THIRD 



KING RICHARD III. 105 

more of glittering show than of significant substance, 
his question impHed a sound judgment. 



JOHN EDWARD McCULLOUGH. 

McCullough's ideal of Richm^d was correct, com- 
prehending intellect, conscience, sardonic humor, 
latent sensibility, and fiery physical vitality, and his 
execution of it evinced abundant structural skill, — 
the faculty, in dramatic art, which differentiates char- 
acter. McCuUough was nearest to himself in Virginius 
or Ki7ig Lear and furthest from liimself in Richard, 
— yet he was equally truthful to the substance of each, 
and especially excellent in method of expression. 
Morbid parts and parts largely exactive of subtlety 
clashed against the limitations of his nature and his 
experience; but in parts involving elemental feelings 
he moved to victory with the assured step and spon- 
taneous ease of an ordained conqueror. Two quali- 
ties were conspicuous in his performance of Richard, — 
elevation of state and simplicity of style. The per- 
formance was remarkable for consistent, sustained 
identification. Richard was clearly manifested, at his 
first entrance, as a consummate type of wicked 
force. His face was marked with heavy lines and 
the blight of deformity was seen and felt to have 
diffused itself through every fibre of the mind and 



106 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

being. Commingled with attributes of the villain 
were attributes of airy duplicity and affected good- 
nature. McCullough's Richard was a man of evil 
purpose, — vigilant, alert, propulsive, — wearing the 
bluff aspect of an engaging, martial man-of-the-world. 
Gibber's version was used, but the light that the actor's 
art irradiated was largely caught from Shakespeare's 
original. In the earlier part of his career McCullough 
was content to "play for points," — as he once 
declared in conversation with me, — but there came a 
time when, persuaded by friendly counsel, he gave 
close attention to the entire drawing of the characters 
in which he acted, and thereafter his delineations of 
them were more carefully articulated and made more 
nearly complete. His performance of Richard, at 
first, was imitative of the points made by Forrest, 
and therefore was fragmentary: it is here considered, 
as it later became, sequent, continuous, and com- 
pact. In the scene of the wooing of Lady Anne 
the glamour that Glo'ster exercises was singularly 
well employed, — the delusively potent hypocrisy of an 
ardent, seemingly remorseful man, — and the spectator 
could almost credit the widowed Lady Anne's beguile- 
ment. McCullough's Richard was of flesh and blood, 
and vibrant with ruthless spirit, yet there was in it, 
perceptible at an early stage in the action, the sug- 
gestion of a nature that preys upon itself and has 



KING RICHARD III. 107 

begun to suffer the pangs of gnawing remorse. The 
terrible aspect of that side of the character was clearly 
shown in the Night Scene before the battle, involving 
the haunting horrors of the Dream, but the power of 
those passages of presentiment and torture and the 
artistic beauty of their portrayal were augmented 
and enforced because the imminent possibility of them 
had been foreshadowed. To perceive the oppor- 
tunity of making that distinction and to use it with 
adequate effect was to rise to a great occasion, and 
that adequacy McCuUough exhibited, in the whole of 
his treatment of the latent human attributes of Glo's- 
ter's complex nature. In the delirium of the awaken- 
ing the spasmodic action and the almost inarticulate 
cries were such as chilled the blood of the listener; the 
illusion at that point was complete. 



EDWIN THOMAS BOOTH. 

The Richard of Shakespeare, like the lago of that 
same marvellous delineator of human nature, knows 
himself, and for himself he wears no disguise. His 
mien, when he is communing with other persons, is 
habitually that of specious duplicity until his ambition 
is achieved. When alone he does not scruple to avouch 
himself a villain and to exult in his villany. That 
contrast was scrupulously made and shown by 



108 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

Edwin Booth, whose assumption of hj^pocritical 
goodness when acting Richard, whether in the Gibber 
version or in the original, — which, suitably cut, he 
restored in 1876, — was indeed so deftly ingratiating 
that it might have deceived the most astute observer, 
and whose contrasted wickedness was so frank, entire, 
and cheerfully sinister as to be literally diabolical. 
The soft, sweet, resigned, melancholy tone in which he 
said to Cateshy, in the scene with the JLord Mayor, 
"Call them again," made the use of deceit artistically 
beautiful, and caused in the listener a singular com- 
mingling of dread, amusement, and admiration, while 
the shocking note of blasphemy and sardonic scorn 
in his ejaculation, "Let not the heavens hear these 
telltale women rail on the Lord's anointed" caused 
a shudder. Edwin Booth was the only actor I ever 
saw who made absolutely credible the winning of 
Lady Anne; and, as nearly as I can ascertain, from 
careful study and inquiry, he was the only actor 
of Richard who ever accomplished that effect. 
Compared with him, in the Wooing Scene, Edwin 
Forrest became ludicrous. Booth even made the 
physical deformity of Richard — deformity wliich in 
his embodiment was slight — only another attribute to 
interest and attract. In that scene he was an 
image of poetic beauty, at once gentle and fiery, 
passionate and tender, brilliant, melancholy, eager, 



KING RICHARD III. 109 

satirical, frank, loving, and noble. The bril- 
liant, icy contempt and scorn with which he spoke 
the words: "Was ever woman in this hmnor wooed? 
was ever woman in this hmnor won?'' baffle descrip- 
tion. Even to remember that performance, as given 
when he was in his prime, is to be thrilled and 
almost frightened; and that performance was the 
more admirable because it was entirely a calculated, 
prepared, controlled work of art. Never have I 
been more startled in a theatre than when, having 
one evening entered the house after the play had 
begun, I took a place in the front row and at the 
extreme verge of the audience, and Booth suddenly 
perceived me, as Lady Anne spoke the words: "Come, 
now, toward Chertsey with your holy load." Stand- 
ing so that one side of his face was not visible to 
others in the audience, he bestowed upon me a cheer- 
ful grimace and wink, and instantly flashed toward 
the centre, exclaiming: "Stay, you that bear the corse, 
and set it down!" He was indeed a marvellous actor, 
always dominating his artistic faculties and himself, 
knowing his purpose and confident of its fulfilment. 

Whenever excessive emotion has induced a strong 
physical enthusiasm, the natural craving of the specta- 
tor is for a violent outburst of physical power. 
Edwin Forrest was usually supreme at such moments. 
Tommaso Salvini excelled in them. The fulfilment 



110 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

of them is generally accepted as greatness in acting, 
whereas, in fact, it is no more than a "limb and out- 
ward flourish." Edwin Booth, spiritually a higher 
actor than either Forrest or Salvini, sometimes, — ^but 
seldom, — failed to fulfil them, from lack of volume 
of voice and muscular strength. The same deficiency 
was \asible in the acting of Henry Irving. The 
physical power requisite to the making of a whirl- 
wind of expression is a rare gift, though some- 
times it exists with little or nothing behind it — as it 
did with James Hudson Kirby and John R. Scott. 
When it exists in association with fine intelligence and 
fiery feeling, as certainly was the case with the 
elder Kean and the elder Booth, — it is a gloriously 
potent gift. It was frequently manifest in the acting 
of Edwin Booth, and, in him, it was governed by 
taste and guided by discretion. He was often inspired 
and tremendous in the Death Scene of Sir Giles 
Overreach, the Curse Scene of King Lear, the 
Curse Scene of Junius Brutus, the awful mid- 
night Triumph Scene of Bertuccio, the Anathema 
Scene of Richelieu, and, especially, in the awakening 
from the haunted sleep of King Richard, — putting 
forth astonishing power and creating terrific effect. 
His frenzied force, however, was fitful, and there are 
moments in some of Shakespeare's plays to which it 
was not always adequate. In Richard as embodied 



KING RICHARD III. Ill 

by him the observer recognized a man consistent 
with human nature and with himself, — false, cruel, 
wicked, almost demoniac, j^et a human being, with 
brain, heart, conscience, imagination, and passions; 
not merely a stage ruffian, but a possible man, whose 
ambition is intelligible, whose conduct proceeds from 
considerate motive, the workings of whose con- 
science are visible even in the pains he takes to 
avow his dissimilarity from other men, whose remorse 
treads on the heels of his crimes, and whose last hours 
are agonized by terror and awful with warning. He 
was the image of an infernal power, playing a great 
part upon a great stage in human affairs, and while 
he struck upon every pulse of fear, he also smote 
the deep springs of pity. The observer, while con- 
strained to rejoice over the defeat and ruin of such 
a fiendish force, was compelled to deplore the 
appalling agony, the ultimate bleak wretchedness, 
and the fearful doom of such an imperial mind. 
In the electrical fire and facile mechanism of 
Booth's Richard the observer was thrilled by the mys- 
terious faculty of genius and delighted by the beauty 
of exquisite art. The exceptional character of certain 
types of the human race was more impressively sug- 
gested by Edwin Booth than by any of his predecessors 
ever seen by me. All the details of his performance 
of Richard were subordinated to the central design of 



112 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

embodying a man beneath whose bright, plausible, 
handsome, alluring exterior sleeps a hellish tempest of 
passion, a smouldering flame of malevolence, a 
fountain of deadly purpose. The prevailing external 
attribute was specious ingenuousness. Perfect craft 
assumed the air of perfect simplicity. All along the 
current of the performance there was an atmosphere 
of alarming suspense, — as of impending disaster, 
vague but ominous, — and when at last the fatal 
lightning of avowed and exultant evil leapt through 
the mist of smooth deceit, its blaze and shock were 
frightful. In the Tent Scene, on the eve of the 
battle, Booth displayed, with agonizing effect, the 
conflict between mortal weakness and unconquer- 
able will, and revealed the action of supernatural 
influence upon a haunted, remorseful, but still 
undaunted soul. His delivery of Richard's awaken- 
ing speech was an afflicting utterance of the agony 
of remorse. He rolled, affrighted, from the bed 
to the ground, sprang forward and crouched upon 
his knees, staring and gasping with horror. In the 
combat his jaws worked convulsively, like those of a 
furious wild animal. He seemed like some grisly 
reptile, turned at bay, desperate and terrible. Hatred 
and ferocity gleamed in his countenance. When dis- 
armed of his sword he fought with his dagger, and on 
receiving his death blow he fell precipitately, plung- 




Conrtesy of Douglas Taijlnr 

EDWIN BOOTH AS THE DUKE OF GLO'STER 



AFTER THE PORTRAIT IN OIL BY JARVIS McEKTEE 



KING RICHARD III. 113 

ing headlong to the ground, — a ghastly, terrific image 
of conquered ferocity and ruined power. Cooke, I 
believe, on the sum of the testimony, was the best 
representative of Cibber's Richard: the best repre- 
sentative whom I have ever seen of Shakespeare's 
Richard was Edwin Booth. One of the greatest of 
Booth's many great attributes was the consummate abil- 
ity, in the very torrent, tempest, and whirlwind of pas- 
sion, to "acquire and beget a temperance that may give 
it smoothness." 

BARRY SULLIVAN. 

Barry Sullivan, who seems to have been considered 
in London as "an outsider," but who was an actor of 
exceptional ability, gave a remarkably potent per- 
formance of Richard — consistent, sustained, uniform, 
and effective. Genius he did not possess. Knowledge 
of his art he did possess, in a remarkable degree, and 
he notably evinced it in his acting of this part. 
There was an air of plausibility about his demeanor 
and proceedings when Glo'ster was in company 
with other persons that might have imposed upon 
anybody, and there was a gay, soaring complacency 
in his demeanor when alone that conveyed a complete 
impression of incarnate wickedness delighted with 
itself. He acted in Cibber's version, which he had 
modified. He was common in fibre, and his delivery 



114 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

was at times spasmodic, but he presented a formidable, 
distinct image of an ambitious, cruel, evil, crafty, 
dangerous person. His ideal of Richard was a man 
of fiery, regnant intellect, possessing a moral sense 
which always informs but never controls; who, in the 
middle stream of a ruthless, sanguinary career, is 
checked and appalled by his mother's curse, and 
presently is shattered by terrific visitations from the 
spirit world. His impersonation lacked electrical fire, 
but it possessed clarity of design, consistency of 
execution, and abundant and sustained force. It 
followed, substantially, the tradition not of Edmund 
Kean, but of Macready. Sullivan was superlatively 
effective in expressing the grim, sarcastic, pitiless 
humor of Richard, particularly in the scenes with 
Lady Anne. His mechanism was peculiarly subtle — 
as when he allowed expressions to flit over his face, 
accordant with the effect upon his mind and feelings 
of every word spoken to him. That merit was prom- 
inently obvious when, in the Wooing Scene, with 
Lady Anne, he listened to her prayer that, should 
her late husband's murderer ever have a child born 
to him, it might be deformed. Sullivan's perform- 
ance was thickly studded with beauties of that descrip- 
tion, and therein it was a consummate work of art. 



KING RICHARD III. 115 

HENRY IRVING. 

Henry Irving's embodiment of Richard, often and 
brilliantly exhibited in England (he produced the 
tragedy, according to Shakespeare, at the London 
Lyceum, January 29, 1877; revived it December 19, 
1896; revived it again, February 27, 1897), was never 
fully shown before an American audience; but, on 
one occasion, (November 24, 1883, at the Star 
Theatre, New York), he acted the part, in the 
opening scene, and afforded a signal evidence of 
his perfect comprehension of the spirit alike of the 
character and of the play. The scene displayed a 
street of old London, with many quaint buildings 
and the Tower in the background, and was bril- 
liantly illumined, as with the brightest of summer 
suns. The buildings were gayly decorated. The 
air was flooded with the melodious clangor of many 
silver chimes. Upon that brilliant scene Glo'ster, 
clothed in bright raiment, entered through an arch- 
way, and paused and glanced around and listened 
to the merry bells before he began to speak, in tones 
of airy mockery, the soliloquy prompted by those 
surroundings : 

" Now is the winter of our discontent 
Made glorious summer by this sun of York." 



116 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

By the air of inevitable predominance with which 
he invested the figure of Richard, signifying con- 
scious power and foreshadowing triumphant victory, 
he struck the key-note of a personation which, in its 
day, elicited the highest praise from the most accom- 
phshed of contemporary critics. That key-note was 
designated (1897), by Sir Edward Russell, as the 
humorous enjoyment of intended villany. In the 
Wooing Scene the specious hypocrisy of his Richard 
made the auditor almost believe that such a man 
might really cajole a weak woman, in the circum- 
stances prescribed. In the Tent Scene he was, being 
alone, observed to be a broken, prematurely old man, 
— affording, in this contrast, says Russell, "as on the 
reverse of a medal, the full meaning of all the high- 
spirited revelling devilry which he has kept up before 
the world." 

VARIOUS PERFORMERS. 

An English actor distinguished in his pros- 
perous day as Richard the Third was James Bennett. 
He visited America, making his first appearance, as 
Richard, at Niblo's Garden, New York, but his acting 
— con-ect, conventional, uninspired — attracted little 
attention. His embodiment of Richard evinced 
scholar-like comprehension of the subject and ample 
professional capability. His engagement was pre- 



KING RICHARD III. 117 

cipitately closed. He was not generously or even fairly 
treated. I have been assured that, when old and 
poor, that worthy and excellent man was maintained, 
to the end of his days, by Henry Irving, at a lodging 
in Stratford-upon-Avon. 

Among the many actors who have presented Richard 
on the American stage were John Hodgkinson, Lewis 
Hallam, Charles Kean, Henry James Finn, Sheridan 
Knowles, Charles Henry Eaton, James Wilham 
Wallack, Edward Loomis Davenport, Wilham Cres- 
wick, Gustavus Vaughan Brooke, Wyzeman Marshall, 
Thomas Sowerby Hamblin, Charles Kemble Mason, 
Edwin Adams, James Edward Murdoch, Lawrence 
Barrett, Thomas Keene, Richard Mansfield, and 
Robert Bruce Mantell. Many years ago James 
Booth Roberts was conspicuous in the part, till he 
laid it aside to identify himself with that of Mephis- 
topheles. Mr. Roberts was a man of diminutive figure 
but dignified bearing, and a scrupulous stickler for 
correctness and decorum — such a man as mischievous 
youths would naturally select as a subject for a 
practical joke. The great comedian Joseph Jeffer- 
son, although in his maturity he strongly condemned 
the practice of "guying," did not in his youth 
wholly abstain from that form of frolic. Thus, he 
told me that when on one occasion he was playing 
Cateshy to the Richard of Roberts, he rushed upon 



118 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

the Battle Scene exclaiming, — ^instead of the correct 
line, "Behind yonder thicket stands a swift horse," — 
"Behind yonder swifet stands a thick horse!" "Mr. 
Roberts," he added, "was much incensed, and he 
rebuked me, after the play, in strong language. I 
told him that I was very sorry and had not meant 
to misread the line; that it had been repeated to 
me in transposed form, and I had become confused. 
'I do not believe you, sir!' rejoined the angry 
tragedian. 'You are a damned mischievous young 
man.' " Mr. Roberts, born in 1818, was one of the 
comparatively few actors of American birth who 
gained distinction in the first half of the nineteenth 
century. He was first seen in New York on February 
22, 1847, at the New Chatham Theatre, in Chatham 
Street, where he acted Richard and made a decisive 
success. His Shakespearean repertory included, 
among other parts, Lear, lago, and Othello. He was 
an excellent "all 'round" actor and an accomplished 
elocutionist. His career was long, and he outlived 
popularity as an actor and ultimately became a 
teacher. He died, September 14, 1901, esteemed by 
all and sincerely lamented. His personation of 
Richard is remembered as definite in ideal, fiery in 
spirit, and smooth in execution. 



KING RICHARD III. 119 

RICHARD MANSFIELD. 

That remarkable actor Richard Mansfield made for 
himself a stage version of Shakespeare's tragedy and 
produced it in a costly and magnificent setting at the 
Globe Theatre, London, on March 16, 1889, then act- 
ing Richard for the first time. Later he made his per- 
formance known throughout the United States. His 
ideal was that of the "laughing devil," and in the 
exposition of it he indicated a novel theory. Richard 
is nineteen years old when he kills King Henry, in 
the Tower, and thirty-three years old when he is 
slain, on Bosworth Field: his progress in evil, the 
actor maintained, should therefore be exhibited, each 
of his murderous deeds being made to react upon him 
mentally and physically, and the effect of that reaction 
being shown in gradual but distinct changes of con- 
dition, aspect, expression, and voice. Pursuant to 
that theory, he made Richard youthful and gay at the 
beginning, and caused him to become grave, stern, 
massive, ruthless, and terrible, as time lapsed and 
the action proceeded, till at last, prematurely old, 
he was seared, haggard, agonized, and desperate, yet 
undaunted. One of the effective devices of pictorial 
stage business invented and employed by Mansfield was 
the use of a ray of red light which, streaming through 
the stained glass of a window in the throneroom, when 



120 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

the King was sitting alone upon the chair to which 
he had made his way by murder, fell upon his hand 
and seemed to bathe it with blood, causing him for 
a moment to shrink and shudder, and to crouch, dis- 
mayed, in the shadow of the throne. Several renowned 
actors of this part denoted the entrance of the iron of 
remorse into the soul of Richard at the moment of his 
mother's denunciation of him. Mansfield showed it as 
early as that scene upon the throne. The most effective 
business he employed v/as that of mistaking Cateshy 
for yet another apparition, when that officer enters, at 
the culmination of the Dream Scene. No one who 
heard it will ever forget the shrill, agonized sound of 
Mansfield's voice when he spoke the words: "Zounds! 
who's there!" Indeed, the whole of his action 
and delivery in that scene was magnificently expres- 
sive of tumultuous anguish, hoiTor, and frenzy, the 
haunted murderer leaping wildly from his couch, 
whirling an imaginary sword, plunging forward as 
if in battle with frightful forms invulnerable to 
mortal blows, and finally stumbling to his knees, as 
he uttered, in an appalling shriek, the supplication 
"Jesu, have mercy!" 

Mansfield, before producing the tragedy in Lon- 
don, had bestowed much thought upon his plan of 
accomplishing a correct, elaborate, and beautiful 
presentment of it. His chief counsellors, in prepara- 




From a pliu1o:jr(iph hij Pack Bios. 

RICHARD MANSFIELD AS THE DUKE OF GLO'STEB ' 

"For God he knows, and you may partly see, 
How far I am from the desire therefor." 

Act III., Sc. 1 (R. M.'s arrangement) 



KING RICHARD HI. 121 

tion for the enterprise, were Walter Herries Pollock 
and J. G. Waller, — the former a noted Shakespearean 
scholar, the latter a learned antiquarian. The requisite 
scenery was painted for him by William Telbin and 
other artists. The dresses and armor were designed 
by Seymour Lucas. The incidental music was com- 
posed by Edward German. Nothing was neglected 
and nothing omitted that could enrich the setting or 
augment verisimilitude in the picture. The result 
was a pageant perhaps unsurpassed in the stage 
history of this play, — and, in recording this opinion, 
it is not forgotten that modern productions of "King 
Richard III." — notably those of Macready, Charles 
Kean, Barry Sullivan, Edwin Booth, and Henry 
Irving, — have far excelled those of the Garrick period, 
in pictorial splendor as well as in thoroughness of 
detail. 

MEANING AND VALUE OF THE PLAY. 

Much fine scenery, representative of Old London, 
was painted by William Capon, for John Philip 
Kemble, in 1793-94, and Kemble, it is apparent 
from the records, made the first really important 
efforts that were made in the British Theatre to set 
the plays of Shakespeare on the stage in a suitable 
investiture, — this tragedy being one of the several 
that he revived. No record, however, has been found 



122 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

of any attempt to set and dress "King Richard III." 
in a comprehensively correct manner before the time 
of Macready, — whose good example, in that par- 
ticular, was followed by Charles Kean and Samuel 
Phelps. The first person to restore this play to the 
stage, suitably cut, was Phelps, — always a stickler 
for "the original text," — who discarded Gibber and 
produced a condensation of Shakespeare, at the 
Sadler's Wells Theatre, Islington, London, on 
Kebruary 20, 1844. Aside from imperative omissions, 
the principal liberty taken with the original was in 
fashioning a scene, subsequent to the removal of the 
dying King Edmard, explanatory of deleted passages, 
— that scene being composed of lines from other por- 
tions of the original. Phelps, — a great actor, an 
indomitable worker, a felicitous originator, and a 
splendid stage director, — acted Richard, embodying 
him as a villain equally bold and specious, whose 
triumphs result as much from ability and artifice as 
from the violence of power. The Wooing Scene was 
fraught with fine dissimulation, the denunciation of 
Hastings was fiery and abrupt, the treatment of the 
exacting later scenes was notable for sustained tragic 
power, — a quality lacking in most performances of 
Richard, — and the Death Scene was terrific. Phelps, 
however, abandoned Shakespeare and reverted to 
Cibber — largely on the advice of his nephew, W. 



KING RICHARD III. 123 

May Phelps, who felt that Miss Atkinson, a member 
of his company, could not equal Mrs. Warner's 
antecedent tragic accomplishment as Shakespeare's 
Queen Margaret. Phelps reverted to the Gibber 
fabric on November 23, 1861. The first actor to 
restore Shakespeare's "King Richard III." to the 
American Stage was Edwin Booth, who brought it 
out, late in 1876, at Brooklyn, New York. Booth's 
version, although there are some changes in the 
distribution of the text as well as in the arrangement 
of the scenes, presents Shakespeare's work not as it 
stands in the eclectic library editions, yet substantially 
as Shakespeare wrote it. No extraneous matter is 
introduced and only a few words are altered — to 
suit the exigencies of stage business. Henry Irving's 
restoration of the original was not effected until 
after Booth's revival had been made. In each of those 
splendid settings some latitude had been allowed to 
fancy. Literal accuracy in the presentment of his- 
torical plays, or of any plays, is neither essential 
nor desirable. We cannot, — as remarked by Thack- 
eray, — have Caractacus painted blue, like a veritable 
ancient Briton, or Boadicea with notliing on but a 
cow-skin — and very little of that. If dresses in 
every particular correct were used in presenting 
"King Richard III.," the resultant effect would often 
be more tiresome and ridiculous than impressive and 



124 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

dramatic. General conformity to the customs, 
implemerlts, and usages of the historic period indi- 
cated satisfies every reasonable requirement, and this 
conformity both exacts and allows practical remem- 
brance of many points, some of the more important 
of which it will be serviceable here to mention. The 
colors of the house of York were dark red and blue; 
those of the house of Lancaster were blue and white; 
those of the house of Tudor were white and green. 
The use of purple cloth of gold and of purple silk 
was, in England, in 1482, restricted by law to the 
Royal Family. No person less in degree than a 
duke could wear cloth of gold of tissue, but noble- 
men of lower rank were allowed to wear plain cloth 
of gold. Knights could wear velvet and squires could 
wear satin. The state dress last worn by King 
Edward the Fourth was one that had very full, 
hanging sleeves, lined with rich furs, and this robe 
was "so rolled over his shoulders as to give his tall 
person an air of peculiar grandeur." In King 
Edward's reign short gowns were worn, over closely 
fitting body suits, with slits through which came the 
arms, while the outer sleeves hung, as empty orna- 
ments, from the shoulder. Short-waisted jackets, 
thickly padded at the shoulders, were in use. The 
boots and shoes of the period, at first, were fasliioned 
with long, pointed toes, but later the toes were made 



KING RICHARD III. 125 

broad and round. Men wore caps adorned with gems 
and feathers. The gowns of women were made with 
long trains, embelHshed with broad velvet borders. 
The waists, in King Edward's time, were very short, 
but in King Richard's time they were made longer. 
Broad belts were worn, with buckles in front. The 
sleeves were long and tight. The steeple head-dress 
(Norman) was fashionable, but it was superseded 
by a cap of gold embroidery, covered by a trans- 
parent veil, which was stiffened in somewhat the form 
of wings. The "common people" wore plain tunics 
reaching to the knees. The robes of the Lord Mayor 
of London were scarlet in color. Long hair was in 
fashion, but it was cut straight across the forehead, 
"clubbed" or "blocked." Ribbed, or plated, armor 
was used in war. 

It was the opinion of Polonius that "the apparel 
oft proclaims the man." It certainly often does fur- 
nish sidelights upon the character. The taste of 
Richard, in this respect, was such as warrants the 
stage representative of him in use of the most lux- 
urious personal adornment — a warrant reinforced, for 
stage purposes, by the facts that a man conscious of 
the disadvantage of physical deformity would be likely 
to seek, by splendor of appearance, to nullify it, 
and that such adornment, properly varied, would 
heighten dramatic effect. There are authentic por- 



126 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

traits of Richard, one of which depicts him as attired 
in a close-fitting suit of scarlet, over which hangs a 
robe of cloth of gold and a black cap, adorned with 
a pearl, while another presents him in a black cap, 
with a body suit of cloth of gold, and a black robe, 
with black and red sleeves. Planche, one of the 
highest authorities that could be quoted upon this 
subject, gives the following significant view of the 
man, in this aspect of his complex, singular, and 
interesting character: 

"Richard's wardrobe was, at all times, magnificently fur- 
nished, — he and the Duke of Buckingham being notorious for 
their love of dress and finery. A mandate still exists, amongst 
the Harleian MSS., sent from York, by Richard, to the keeper 
of his wardrobe in London, — August 31, 1483, — wherein he 
specifies the costly habits in which he was desirous of exhibit- 
ing himself to his Northern subjects, with a descriptive detail 
which, as Mr. Sharon Turner justly remarks, 'we would rather 
look for from the fop that annoyed Hotspur than from the 
stern and warlike Richard.' " 

The subject of King Richard the Third is one of 
the most interesting in all the long and various annals 
of English history, and its presentation in the theatre 
should be encouraged. False as Shakespeare's trag- 
edy is to history, a judicious version of it and such a 
restoration of it to our stage as would compel aban- 



KING RICHARD III. 127 

donment of the Gibber hash is much to be desired. 
Great as some of the performances of Richard were 
that actors of an earher time than ours acliieved in 
Gibber's play, it is ascertained by careful examination 
that the greatness of them was chiefly due to the 
powerful passages of the original, selected and pre- 
served by Gibber, in the mosaic which he made out of 
Shakespeare's text, the opportunities of acting thus 
provided, and the actor's capability of improving those 
opportunities. The resistless charm of the authentic 
theatrical character of Richard consists in the iinion of 
colossal will with instantaneous promptitude of action. 
He has been conceived and portrayed by the poet 
as a complete incarnation of that pernicious force in 
Nature which never sleeps, never rests, never pauses — 
the force of Evil, provided, in the mysterious scheme 
of things, for the production of Good. Richard 
affords startling contrasts, either moving furtively 
or braving all opposition and trampling upon every- 
thing. He is the embodied energy of an infernal 
spirit. Twice only is he checked, and then for only 
a moment. But, notwithstanding all his wicked 
power, Richard is human, and though he cannot be 
reached from without he is finally struck from 
within. The regnancy of his indomitable intellect, 
which carries him so high, and which should forecast 
events and lead him to ultimate victory, crumbles 



128 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

in the flame of its own wickedness. Any expert, capa- 
ble actor would always have an audience as Richard. 
Given an actor who can provide that personality with 
a fair and winning exterior and can display it by 
brilliant expression, — an actor who possesses the lithe 
body, the luminous face, the piercing eyes, the capa- 
cious, sonorous voice, the ruling brain, the fire, the 
terrible tragic power, and the consummate art which 
sometimes are combined in one man, as they were in 
Edwin Booth in his prime, — and Shakespeare's Rich- 
ard the Third furnishes one of the greatest of all 
opportunities that even such a marvellously gifted 
actor can seize — the opportunity to interpret and make 
actual in the theatre a thriUing, terrific conception of 
intellectual power perverted to the service of Evil and 
at the same time convincingly to demonstrate its utter 
futility when at last and inevitably it dashes itself 
against the adamant of Divine Law. 



III. 

THE MERCHANT OF VENICE. 

"Thou art come to answer 
A stony adversary, an inhuman wretch 
Uncapable of pity, void and empty 
From any dram of mercy." 

— Shakespeare. 

The most popular of Shakespeare's comedies, the 
one most widely known, the one by means of which 
most abundant success has been obtained on the 
stage, is "The Merchant of Venice." One reason for 
its exceptional vitality is the fascinating charm of its 
style, the simple, direct, fluent, sweet, natural language 
of human feeling, sometimes irradiated with the fire 
of poetic thought, and sometimes expanded and ele- 
vated with the fervor of noble eloquence. Its more 
decisive power consists in the felicity of its fable, and 
in the force, interest, and variety of its happily harmo- 
nized and as happily contrasted characters. The love 
story of Bassanio and Portia is ingeniously fanciful, 
and it may be doubted whether, in the whole wide 
range of the poetic drama, there is any woman who 
can vie with Portia, as a type of blended intellect, 

129 



130 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

brilliancy, and feminine fascination. No characters in 
Shakespearean comedy are more sharply discriminated 
or more vigorously drawn than those of Portia^ Shy- 
lock, Antonio, Gratiano, and Launcelot Gobbo, 
Nowhere else is the poet more eloquent than he is in 
this play, in expressing elemental passions of human 
nature. Portia is a perfect incarnation of love, Shylock 
a perfect incarnation of hate; Antonio typifies the 
temperament of constitutional melancholy; Gratiano 
is embodied glee, and Launcelot is an image of drollery 
and animal happiness. Studies of character that the 
poet began in his juvenile comedy of "The Two Gen- 
tlemen of Verona" are massed and completed in his 
mature comedy of "The Merchant." Launce, in the 
former, foreshadows Launcelot in the latter, Lucetta 
is the germ of Nerissa, and Julia preludes Portia. 

Shakespeare may have derived the principal inci- 
dents of his plot from Giovanni's tale, called "II 
Pecorone," published at Milan, 1558, or he may have 
found them in the "Gesta Romanorum"; he probably 
knew the old ballad of Gernutus, which particularly 
tells the story of the Jew, but more probably he built 
upon the basis of an older play, which was on the 
stage when he was a boy. That older play is mentioned 
in "The School of Abuse," 1579, by Stephen Gosson, 
clergyman and poet, 1554-1623, who says that it was 
"shewn at the Bull," and that it represented "the 



THE MERCHANT OF VENICE 131 

greedynesse of worldly chusers and the bloody minds of 
usurers." The cruel Jew is an ancient denizen of the 
world of fiction. Dowden remarks that the story of 
the casket can be found in the medigeval romance of 
"Barlaam and Josaphat," written by Joannes Dama- 
scenus, about the year 800, and that it occurs in 
Boccaccio, 1313-1375, and Gower, 1320-1402. The 
choice of materials, however, was not so important as 
the use of them. Shakespeare was an interpreter, and 
in this case, as in so many others, the magical touch 
of his genius transmuted the dross of legendary lore 
into the pure gold of poetry and lit the still life of 
narrative with the blaze of action. Astute judges of 
dramatic art have agreed that Shakespeare, in "The 
Merchant of Venice," shows himself the absolute mas- 
ter of his art. "The union of the two actions in one 
event," said Dr. Johnson, "is eminently happy: Dry- 
den was much pleased with his own address in 
connecting the two plots of his 'Spanish Friar,' 
which yet I believe the critic will find excelled by this 
play." "In the management of the plot," said the 
learned Henry Hallam, "which is sufficiently complex, 
without the slightest confusion or incoherence, I do 
not conceive that it has been surpassed in the annals 
of any theatre." 

No record exists stating when and where "The 
Merchant of Venice" was first produced. It is one 



132 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

of the twelve plays by Shakespeare mentioned by 
Francis Meres in his "Palladis Tamia, Wits' Treas- 
ury," 1598. It was entered at Stationers' Hall in that 
year, first printed in 1600, reprinted the same year, — 
each time in Quarto, — and not again printed till repro- 
duced in the First Folio, 1623. In Philip Henslowe's 
diary there is mention of the "Venesyan Comedy" as 
having been acted for the first time on August 25, 
1594, but the authorship is not stated. If, as seems 
probable, that was Shakespeare's play, this comedy 
has (1911), in one form or another, been on the stage 
intermittently for 317 years. Henslowe, theatrical 
manager and play-broker, was the partner of Edward 
Alleyn, the distinguished actor who founded Dul- 
wich College, where the Diary is treasured, — as it 
should be, because it is one of the most informing and 
useful of existing records relative to the drama in the 
time of Queen Elizabeth. If "The Merchant of 
Venice" was first acted on the date named by Hens- 
lowe, the performance occurred at Newington Butts, 
in Surrey; for the players, at that time, having been 
expelled from Southwark, had removed to that place, 
not distant from London. Between 1594 and the 
period of George Granville, Viscount Lansdowne (1667- 
1735), who mutilated the comedy, and whose mutila- 
tion of it, first produced Januaiy 11, 1701, at Lincoln's 
Inn Fields, was used in the theatre for the ensuing 



THE MERCHANT OF VENICE 133 

forty years, the stage history of "The Merchant of 
Venice" is a blank. 

THE FIRST SHYLOCK. 

There is sufficient reason to believe that the first 
of the many performers who have appeared as Shy- 
lock was Richard Burbage, though nothing is known 
of the manner of his performance. It can, how- 
ever, rightly be inferred from such imperfect knowl- 
edge as is possessed of his acting in general that he 
played the part in accordance with the serious spirit 
in which it is written. The elegy on his death, — as 
to the authenticity of at least a part of which there 
is, however, a reasonable doubt, — provides the informa- 
tion that in his dressing of Shylock he wore red hair, 
and J. Payne Collier declares that he also wore a 
long false nose, such as was worn by Alleyn, the 
representative of Barahas, in Christopher Marlowe's 
"The Jew of Malta," acted in 1591. If so, that 
fact would seem to indicate that Burbage laid par- 
ticular stress, amounting, indeed, to caricature, on 
the Jewish physiognomy. It seems credible that the 
tragic method of playing Shylock was not used in the 
time of the author, for the Jews were disliked in 
England, in Queen Elizabeth's reign and that of 
King James the First, and a high ideal of Shylock 
would not have been accepted by the public. 



134 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

THE LANSDOWNE ALTERATION. 

Lansdowne's perversion of Shakespeare's comedy is 
called "The Jew of Venice." It is provided with a 
prologue, written by a person named Bevil Higgons, 
in which the ghosts of Shakespeare and Dryden, 
crowned with laurel, deliver an inane colloquy, one 
illuminative line of which says, "To-day we punish a 
stock- jobbing Jew." In the Second Act several of the 
principal characters are assembled at a feast, and Shy- 
lock, sitting apart from the other persons, drinks a 
health, sajang: "Money is my Mistress! Here's to 
Interest upon Interest!" The festival is prolonged 
by a dreary masque, called "Peleus and Thetis." There 
are five acts in the Lansdowne hash, compounded of 
extracts, often garbled, from Shakespeare's text, and 
bad verses by the adapter, the dominating purpose 
being to make Bassanio the chief part in the comedy. 
Shylock is made ludicrous and contemptible. The cast 
with which Lansdowne's jumble was produced included 
Thomas Betterton, as Bassanio; Barton Booth, as 
Gratiano; John Verbruggen, as Antonio; Henry 
Harris, as the Duke of Venice; Thomas Dogget, as 
Shylock; Anne Bracegirdle, as Portia; Mrs. Bowman, 
as Nerissa; and Mary Porter, as Jessica, — by all 
accounts surely an extraordinary group of players. 



THE MERCHANT OF VENICE 135 

]Mrs. Bracegirdle and Mrs. Bowman were women of 
superb beauty. 

Betterton, incomparably the greatest actor of his 
time, never appeared as Shyloch. Thomas Dogget, 
of whom it is recorded that he was "the first star" 
in the annals of the stage, made Shyloch a low comedy 
part, especially in the colloquy with Tubal; but par- 
ticular description of liis comicality has not been found. 
He was essentially a comic actor. The remark made 
by Downes, on that point, is conclusive: "Mr. Dogget, 
on the stage, he's very aspectabund, wearing a farce 
in his face; his thoughts deliberately framing his utter- 
ance congruous to his looks. He is the only comic 
original now [1708] extant: witness, Ben, Solon, 
Nichin, the Jew of Venice, &c." Dogget died in 1721. 
He was, on the authority of Colley Cibber, highly 
commendable, among other merits, for care and 
correctness in the dressing of the characters that he 
assumed. 

MACKLIN TO MANSFIELD. 

Among memorable embodiments of Shylock that 
have established themselves in theatrical annals are 
those that were given by Charles Macklin, John Hen- 
derson, George Frederick Cooke, Edmund Kean, 
Junius Brutus Booth, William Charles Macready, 
James William Wallack, Edwin Booth, Bogumil 



136 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

Dawison, Henry Irving, and Richard Mansfield. In 
the forty years preceding the time of Macklin Shy- 
lock had been represented, when represented at all, 
which was not very often, in Lansdowne's version, 
and always as a low comedy part. Macklin reverted 
to Shakespeare, revived the original play, discard- 
ing the Lansdowne deformity, and acted Shylock 
in a tragic spirit, achieving an immediate and 
prodigious success. The dress and make-up of Mack- 
lin included long, wide trousers, a loose, black gown, 
a three-cornered red hat, and a piqued beard. He prob- 
ably wore red hair, as had been customary. Black hair 
was first worn in the part by Edmund Kean. James 
William Wallack was the first actor to dress Shylock' s 
head with literally gray hair, which he did at the earnest 
request of his son, Lester Wallack. The exact age 
of Shylock is indeterminate; but he is a widower, with 
a daughter of marriageable age; in the Trial Scene he 
is called "old Shylock"; and he so designates himself: 
"Thou shalt see: thy eyes shall be the judge, the dif- 
ference of old Shylock and Bassanio": in the Street 
Scene there is still another intimation as to his age. 
Solanio, replying to Shylock's bitter reproach of his 
daughter, "My own flesh and blood to rebel," makes 
the ribald, punning answer, "Out upon it, old car- 
rion! rebels it at these years?" It is imperative to 
depict the Jew as a man of fifty years or more. His 



THE MERCHANT OF VENICE 137 

visage, moreover, would naturally be marked by the 
lines of craft and seared by the seething fire of evil 
passions. 

Macklin's embodiment of Shylock was grim and ter- 
rible. He was a man of sinister aspect. Quin, his 
contemporary, said that his face was marked not with 
lines, but with cordage. His eyes were dark and fiery; 
his nose was aquiline and very prominent; his jaws 
were large and heavy; his mouth was wide; his lower 
lip protruded; his complexion was yellow, his figure 
stout and formidable, his voice harsh, and his temper 
arrogant. As Shylock, he incarnated malice and 
revenge, and therein he was true to Shakespeare's con- 
ception of the character, albeit there is a temptation, 
to which various actors and commentators have suc- 
cumbed, to provide the Jew with amiable, redeeming 
human attributes. 

THE CHARACTER OF SHYLOCK. 

The notion that Shylock is, or was intended to be, 
a majestic type of the religious and racial grandeur 
of Israel appears to have germinated, or at least to 
have acquired authority, about the beginning of the 
nineteenth century. The German publicist, Ludwig 
Boerne (1786-1837), writing about "The Merchant of 
Venice," designated Shylock "an exalted Jew and an 



138 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

avenging angel," not persecuting Antonio as the foe 
of usury, but as the foe of the Hebrew faith. Douglas 
Jerrold (1803-1857) said of Edmund Kean, as Shy- 
lock j that he impressed his audience 'like a chapter of 
Genesis." Thomas R. Gould, writing about the elder 
Booth as Shylock, declared that he made the part "the 
representative Hebrew." That view is alluring to 
imaginative, sympathetic, ingenious students of this 
complex subject, and they are prone to read subtle 
meanings into the text of Shakespeare; but it is not 
warranted by anything in the play. On the contrary, 
everything in the play confutes it. No word spoken 
by Shylock, and no word spoken about him, justifies 
the theory that he is "an avenging angel." No part 
of his conduct justifies it, and, as an old proverb says, 
"Actions speak louder than words." Shylock hates 
Antonio for several sufficient reasons, which are dis- 
tinctly specified. He is a revengeful man, and he 
purposes to gratify his revengeful desire by committing 
murder under the sanction of legal form. Able and 
admirable representatives of Shylock, subsequent 
to the time of Macklin, have deemed it essential 
to commend the character to public sympathy by in- 
vesting it to some extent with paternal feeling and 
domestic virtue. Even George Frederick Cooke, the 
avowed disciple of Macklin, when delivering Shylock's 
passionate expostulation, "Hath not a Jew eyes?" 



THE MERCHANT OF VENICE 139 

dwelt pathetically on the word "affections" Henry 
Irving after saying of Jessica, "I would my daughter 
were dead at my foot, and the jewels in her ear! would 
she were hearsed at my foot, and the ducats in her 
coffin!" interjected, in tones of poignant anguish, "No, 
no, no, no, no!" Richard Mansfield, at the place where 
Shylock leaves his house, to feast with his Christian 
enemies (immediately subsequent to his emphatic 
refusal to do so!), caused the father to embrace his 
daughter Jessica and kiss her on the forehead, — that 
daughter who describes their house as "hell," and 
testifies as to Shylock's feeling and purposes revealed 
in the privacy of his home. 

"When I was with him, I have heard him swear, 
To Tubal and to Chus, his counti'ymen, 
That he would rather have Antonio's flesh 
Than twenty times the value of the sum 
That he doth owe him." 

Shylock has been grossly ill-treated by Antonio^ 
stigmatized as a "cutthroat dog," publicly spurned, 
insulted on the Exchange, — the Rialto, — kicked, spat 
upon, habitually reviled, treated as if he were 
no better than "a stranger cur"; and Antonio, 
— "the good Antonio," "the honest Antonio," of 
whom it is said by one of his friends that "a kinder 
gentleman treads not the earth," — has explictly 



140 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

assured him of the Hkehhood of a continuance of the 
same ignominious treatment. Shyloch accordingly 
hates Antonio with an implacable though natural 
hatred and wishes to kill him; and, opportunity pre- 
senting itself, Shylock speciously and treacherously 
induces Antonio to make a covenant the breaking of 
which will, on the exaction of the nominated forfeiture, 
cost him his life. Shylock hypocritically calls that 
covenant "a merry bond," and signifies that even 
though Antonio should "break his day," the penalty 
would not be exacted; and this he does within a few 
moments after privately asseverating that, if he "can 
catch him once upon the hip," he "will feed fat the 
ancient grudge" he bears him. From the first moment 
when he perceives even a glimmering chance of 
revenge it is the intention of Shylock to murder the 
man whom he hates and loathes. It is obvious that 
his reasons for entertaining and pursuing that inten- 
tion are sufficient to his own mind, but it is also 
obvious that he is a sanguinary, ruthless villain. Opin- 
ion on that point has always differed, and accordingly 
the numerous representations of Shylock which have 
been provided within the long period since Shake- 
speare's Jew was restored to the stage (1741), by 
Macklin, have chiefly varied in the particular of moral- 
ity, some actors endeavoring to present Shylock as an 
austere image of Justice, others presenting him as a 



THE MERCHANT OF VENICE 141 

baleful image of Revenge, and still others, — James 
William Wallack, Edward Loomis Davenport, and 
Richard Mansfield, for example, — striving to make 
him a composite of both. 



CHARLES MACKLIN. 

Macklin's restoration of Shakespeare's comedy to 
the stage was accomplished under circumstances of 
peculiar interest. The scene was Drury Lane Theatre. 
The actor, then past fifty, w^as desirous of making 
a more distinctive mark than he had ever before made. 
The manager of the theatre, Charles Fleetwood, had 
left the direction of the stage and the dramatic policy 
of the theatre mainly in his hands. Macklin chanced 
to consider the character of Sliylock, and, disapproving 
of Lansdowne's play and the long prevalent custom 
of making the Jew a broadly farcical character, as 
that play requires that the actor of Shyloch should do, 
determined to revert to the original piece, and to act 
the part as a serious one. Fleetwood consented, and 
Shakespeare's comedy was put into rehearsal. The 
actors associated with Macklin, when apprized of his 
purpose to appear as Shyloch, received the avowal of 
it v/ith derision. At the rehearsals, accordingly, the 
astute player, concealing his full design, enjoined his 
fellows, speaking in his capacity of stage manager, to 



142 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

put forth their utmost powers; but he himself acted 
tamely, so that they were all deceived and became 
persuaded that he would meet with disgraceful failure. 
Fleetwood, alarmed by their reports, urged him to 
desist from the attempt, but was reassured by the 
intrepid innovator's declaration that he was purposely 
misleading his associates in the cast, and "would 
pledge his life" on the success of the undertaking. 
Quin, the Antonio of the occasion, said that Macklin 
would be hissed from the stage. When the night of 
trial arrived, an eager assemblage, filling Drury Lane, 
saw Shylock attired as he had never before been 
attired witliin their knowledge, and likewise saw a pre- 
sentment of the character which was altogether new. 
Approval greeted the opening scenes, but when, in the 
tremendous passion of the Street Scene, the actor lib- 
erated all his fire, the astonished audience became 
wildly enthusiastic, and his triumph was complete. 
"I had the good fortune," so he said, recounting his 
memorable experience, "to please beyond my warm- 
est expectations. The whole house was in an uproar 
of applause, and I was obliged to pause between the 
speeches to give it vent, so as to be heard. . . . The 
Trial Scene wound up the fulness of my reputation. 
Here I was well listened to, and here I made such a 
silent yet forcible impression on my audience that I 
retired from this great attempt most perfectly satis- 



THE MERCHANT OF VENICE 143 

fied." It is recorded that the dense monarch King 
George the Second, who saw the performance, was 
so completely frightened by it that he was unable 
to sleep that night. The German traveller and 
critic George Christopher Lichtenberg, to whom 
readers are indebted for glimpses of the acting of the 
Quin-Macklin-Garrick period, wrote of Macklin's 
Shylock: "In the scene when for the first time he 
misses his daughter he appears without his hat, with 
his hair standing on end and in some places a finger's 
length above the crown, as if the wind from the gal- 
lows had blown it up. Both hands are firmly clenched, 
and all his movements are abrupt and convulsive." 
The comedy, as revived and treated by Macklin, held 
the stage for a long time and was often performed, 
always with success. Macklin's embodiment of Shy- 
lock, judging from the records which survive, while 
it has been excelled in minutise of detail, has never 
been excelled in ideal or in terrific power. Thomas 
Davies (the biographer of Garrick, be it remem- 
bered!), who had seen and capably observed the act- 
ing of Charles Macklin, mentions him as the only 
actor he had ever seen "that made acting a science.'* 
On the night of Macklin's signal victory Kitty Clive 
played Portia and Hannah Pritchard played Nerissa, 



144 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

JOHN HENDERSON. 

John Henderson, succeeding after many repulses, 
made his first prominent appearance in London, play- 
ing Shyloch, June 11, 1777, at the Haymarket The- 
atre, and although, as certified in one contemporary 
record, "his style being different from Macklin's, 
critics were divided in opinion," gained brilliant suc- 
cess. "Henderson's Shylock/' said John Philip Kem- 
ble, "was the greatest effort that I ever witnessed on 
the stage." George Colman, then manager of the 
Haymarket, said that "in the impassioned scene with 
Tubal he seemed a black Lear" and bore "an odd 
resemblance of a mad king in a storm"; but Colman 
objected to his costume, declaring that it looked as if 
it had been hired from a pawnbroker. Macklin 
attended the performance, and cordially praised it. 
"And yet, sir," said Henderson, "I have never had 
the advantage of seeing you in that character." "It 
is not necessary to tell me that, sir," replied the vet- 
eran; "I knew you had not, or you would have played 
it differently." 

Garrick, who disliked Henderson, remarked, after 
witnessing the representation, that the part of Tubal 
had been acted well. The renown of Henderson, who 
in his short professional life of only thirteen years 
played more than a hundred parts, rests mainly on his 



THE MERCHANT OF VENICE 145 

impersonations of Shylock^ Fcdstaff, lago^ and Sir 
Giles Overreach, although he was also admired in 
Hamlet, Macbeth, and King Lear, and in Horatius, 
in William Whitehead's tragedy of "The Roman 
Father." Among all the players of the shining Gar- 
rick period he appears to have been exceptionally 
versatile, and he possessed distinctively original genius. 
The testimony is emphatic that his acting was guided 
by extraordinary acuteness of judgment and vitalized 
by splendid enthusiasm. He was decisively effective 
in his sudden transitions from one passion to another, 
and he excelled equally in the delivery of soliloquy 
and the pointed ejaculation of abrupt speeches. 
Minute analysis of his method of representing Shy- 
lock is not available, but Colman's simile for the 
embodiment — "a black Lear" — conveys instructive 
significance both as to manner and aspect. He made 
his way to eminence despite serious physical disadvan- 
tages and harsh adversity of criticism. He died No- 
vember 25, 1785, at the age of thirty-eight, and his 
ashes rest, near those of Garrick and Dr. Johnson, in 
the Poets' Corner of Westminster Abbey. 

GEORGE FREDERICK COOKE. 

George Frederick Cooke, who in his youth had seen 
Macklin as ShylocJc, followed in general the example 



146 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

of that distinguished predecessor; yet while embody- 
ing Shylock as an odious incarnation of the diaboUcal 
purpose of murderous revenge he tempered the 
malignity of the character by an infusion of domestic 
sentiment and grim piety. That turquoise ring wliich 
Shylock 'had of Leah when he was a bachelor,' and 
that oath of his, which he declares to have been regis- 
tered in heaven, are the chief pretexts for that humani- 
tarian gloss. ■ Cooke's performance of Shylock was 
first seen in London in 1800, and first seen in New 
York in 1810. Mention is made of the savage exulta- 
tion of his laugh when hearing TuhaVs statement of 
Antonio's losses, the electrical rapidity of his transi- 
tions of passion, and his mingled apprehension and 
inveteracy when, replying to Portias entreaty, "Bid 
me tear the bond," the Jew ejaculates, "When it is 
PAID — according to the tenor!" Shouts of applause 
testified to the effect of his utterance of the tremendous 
agony and rage of the Street Scene. "I can," wrote 
his biographer, William Dunlap, "conceive of nothing 
so perfectly 'the Jew that Shakespeare drew' as the 
voice, face, manner, and expression of Cooke"; and, 
according to that authority, "the whole of the Trial 
Scene was inimitable in Cooke's hands," defying com- 
petition. When Portia spoke the line, "It is an attri- 
bute to God himself," he reverently bowed his head; 
but when she said, "That same prayer doth teach us 





u 



c/3 

< 
o 



THE MERCHANT OF VENICE 147 

all to render the deeds of mercy," he made a movement 
of head and hand to signify his rejection of the senti- 
ment as something completely irrelevant to himself 
and his race. Other performers of Shylock have used 
that business in later years. 

EDMUND KEAN. 

Edmund Kean, whose great triumph in the part 
of Shylock Yfas achieved at Drury Lane, on a dreary 
winter night, January 26, 1814!, presented the Jew 
as a creature of murderous malice, and yet of distinc- 
tively Hebraic majesty, and of what can perhaps 
correctly be called Mosaic fanaticism, a relentless 
adherence to the dogma "an eye for an eye and a tooth 
for a tooth"; captivating the public, however, more by 
the spell of terror, exerted in a whirlwind of conflict- 
ing passions suddenly loosed out of cold, concentrated, 
iron composure, than by a definite, coherent, rounded 
impersonation. One of his greatly effective points 
was a complete collapse at the climax of the Trial 
Scene, when he spoke, in tones of overwhelming agony, 
the abject supplication, "Nay, take my life and all, 
pardon not that!" Most of the descriptions which 
survive of Kean's acting are so charged with enthu- 
siasm and so garnished with superlatives that they 
bewilder more than they instruct; but, obviously, he 



148 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

was a prodigy of genius. Kean was in the twenty- 
seventh year of his age when he gained this his first 
success on the London stage. His life had been one 
of continuous hardship. He was wretchedly poor. 
He was comparatively unknown. The directors of 
Drury Lane Theatre, however, had heard of him, 
and, being in urgent need of an attraction, they sent 
a person to see him, at one of the English provincial 
theatres, with authority to engage him, for London, 
in case his acting should, to that emissary, prove 
satisfactory. He was engaged, and on reaching the 
capital, accompanied by his wife and their infant 
son Charles, he obtained a lodging in the garret of a 
house in Cecil Street, Strand. Various obstacles were 
thrown in his way. The directors of Drury Lane 
patronized him, asking at first that they might hear 
him "recite," later declaring it would be judicious 
for him to make his first appearance in a minor part. 
The terms of his engagement stipulated that he should 
act only leading parts. He stood on his rights. He 
declined to recite and he declined to play second to 
anybody. The part of Richard the Third was then 
contemptuously offered to him, but, as he deemed his 
figure too diminutive for it, he refused to act in it. 
"Shyloch, or nothing" was his final answer, and, after 

three other actors, — Stephen Kemble, Tokely, 

and Huddart, — had been put forward as 



THE MERCHANT OF VENICE 149 

the Jew, all of whom failed, he was announced 
for that part. One rehearsal was allowed to him, — 
on the morning preceding his first appearance, — at 
which rehearsal he so restrained his powers and 
concealed his purpose as to impress all observers 
with a confident belief that he would fail. The day- 
preceding his crucial effort had been wet, cold, and 
gloomy; the evening was desolate and bleak. When 
he left his miserable lodging, to walk to the theatre, 
through drizzle and slush, he was heard to murmur, 
"I wish that I was going to be shot!" In a poor, 
inconvenient dressing-room at Drury Lane, which 
he was shamefully necessitated to share with two of 
the minor actors, he put on the gabardine of Shylock, 
and, for the first time in the stage history of that 
character, a black wig, — instead of a red one, — thereby- 
inciting the surprise and the contemptuously expressed 
pity of the manager. Then came the wonderful per- 
formance, — the totally unexpected revelation of tre- 
mendous power, terrific tragic passion, imperial 
authority, and intense feeling, — a performance which 
had proceeded only a little way when the theatre 
resounded with the applause of an astounded and 
delighted audience, and at the fall of the curtain after 
the Street Scene one of the most signal victories had 
been gained that ever have been achieved in the his- 
tory of the Stage. Hazlitt, representing "The Lon- 



150 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

don Morning Chronicle," chanced to be present, and 
he sounded the first note of the resonant acclama- 
tion which, — notwithstanding quarrels and qualifica- 
tions, — ever since has followed the acting of Edmund 
Kean. 

JUNIUS BRUTUS BOOTH.— WILLIAM CHARLES MACREADY.— 
CHARLES KEAN. 

Junius Brutus Booth as SJiyloch took the imagina- 
tive, exalted view of the character, laying particular 
emphasis on those intimations of racial pomp and 
religious austerity which predilection for the ideal 
of the pious and majestic Hebrew discerns in such 
phrases as "our holy Abraham," "at our synagogue," 
and "An oath, an oath! I have an oath in heaven"; 
at the same time, like Edmund Kean, he wrought 
his chief effect by means of the Jew's delirium, thrill- 
ing his hearers by the tempest of emotion, the frenzied 
ebullition of commingled impulses and contrasted 
passions, — avarice, fury, resentment, and snarling, 
murderous malignity, — in the Street Scene. There 
is a published letter in which Edwin Booth, writing 
to the eminent Shakespeare scholar Horace Howard 
Furness, expresses his belief that Cooke, Edmund 
Kean, and the elder Booth followed the Macklin tradi- 
tion and presented Shyloch as "grotesque in make-up 



THE MERCHANT OF VENICE 151 

and general treatment." Cooke, undoubtedly, copied 
Macklin's method, and yet even of Cooke it is 
recorded that he sounded a note of pathos in the 
performance: but Edmund Kean and J. B. Booth 
deviated widely from the model set by Macklin. It 
was of Kean's Shylock that Douglas Jerrold said it 
was "like a chapter of Genesis," — meaning that, in 
its stern, bleak simplicity, it was austere, hard, 
peremptory, decisive; incarnating the Mosaic idea of 
inexorable Law; and Hazlitt, Kean's ardent admirer 
and advocate, intimated that his performance of the 
Jew was essentially unlike that of JNIacklin (which 
he had never seen: Macklin, who finally retired from 
the stage in 1789, died when Hazlitt was only eleven 
j^ears old), and superior to it. The elder Booth's 
Shylock is specifically described by his faithful and 
reverent chronicler, Thomas R. Gould, and obviously 
it did not resemble that of Macklin. "He made 
it," says Gould, "the representative Hebrew: the 
type of a race as old as the world. He drew 
the character in lines of simple grandeur, and filled 
it with fiery energj^ In his hands it was marked 
by pride of intellect; by intense pride of race; by a 
reserved force, as if there centred in him the might 
of a people whom neither time, nor scorn, nor political 
oppression could subdue; and which has, at successive 
periods, even down to our own day, drawn the atten- 



152 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

tion of mankind towards its frequent examples of 
intellectual power." 

Macready's ideal of Shylock, which he presented in 
his customary admirable style of minute elaboration 
and complete symmetry, was not, as historic commen- 
tary has sometimes declared, the majestic Israelite, 
intent to avenge upon the Christian the accumulated 
wrongs of his "sacred nation," but a creature compact 
of austerity and murderous malice. He declared the 
opinion that the character is "composed of harsh- 
ness," and that Shylock' s anguish relative to the loss 
of the ring of Leah is only the suffering of wounded 
cupidity. His delivery of one sentence, "Nearest his 
heart — those are the very words," which was horrible 
in its expression of hatred and exultant cruelty, 
signified the intrinsic spirit of his performance. 

Charles Kean not only made Shylock a quaint 
character but also he made him, at some moments, noble 
and winning, — a condition absolutely incongruous with 
Shakespeare's Jew. His ideal, accordingly, was 
measurably incorrect: his execution was deft and 
admirable. In aspect and demeanor Kean was austere 
and formidable, and he employed in his performance 
many of the striking devices of stage business which 
had been used by Edmund Kean, his father. His 
delivery was generally correct, but occasionally it 
was marred by his "pudding voice" enunciation, — as 



THE MERCHANT OF VENICE 153 

when, in the Trial Scene, he besought the Duke of 
Venice, saying: 

*' Nay, take my life and all ; pardon not dat: 
You take my house when you do take de prop 
Dat doth sustain my house; you take my life 
When you do take the heans whereby I live." 

Edwin Forrest sometimes acted Shyloch, but early 
in his career he discarded the part, as also he did 
that of lago, — "on account," says his chief biographer, 
Alger, "of his extreme distaste for the parts, and 
his unwillingness to bear the ideal hate and loathing 
they awakened in spectators." There is a record which 
alleges, on the authority of "an old actor of the Bowery 
Theatre, New York," that Forrest, in his early days, 
when playing Shylock, was accustomed to include in 
his equipment for the Trial Scene a small whetstone 
with which to sharpen his knife preparatory to the 
cutting of the "pound of flesh." 



EDWIN THOMAS BOOTH. 

Edwin Booth, in his younger days, when acting 
Shyloch, endeavored to express the same ideal of that 
character which had been shown by his father, but 
later he discarded that ideal and presented Shylock 
as the relentless revenger of personal indignities, — an 



154 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

injured, insulted, bitterly resentful man, animated by 
a vindictive, implacable hatred, intensified by racial 
and religious antipathy. In liis letter to Furness, 
already mentioned. Booth wrote: 

"I think Macready was the first to lift the uncanny Jew out 
of the darkness of his native element of revengeful selfishness 
into the hght of the venerable Hebrew, the Martyr, the 
Avenger. He has had several followers, and I once tried to 
view him in that light, but he doesn't cast a shadow sufficiently 
strong to contrast with the sunshine of the comedy. . . . 'Twas 
the money value of Lealis ring that he grieved over, not its 
association with her, else he would have shown some affection 
for her daughter." 

It is notable, as a coincidence of thought, that 
Macreadj^ many years before Booth thus expressed 
his judgment, had not only written, of Shyloch, that 
the part is "composed of harshness," but also had 
set forth the identical conclusion reached by Booth 
relative to Shylock's interest in Leah's ring. 

Booth's first great revival of "The Merchant of 
Venice" was effected at the old Winter Garden 
Theatre, New York, on January 28, 1867, when 
he accomplished a production of that comedy not 
before equalled and not surpassed until Henrj'- 
Irving revived the play, November 1, 1879. The 
scenery, painted by Henry Hilliard and Charles 
Witham, from original pictures of streets and build- 



THE MERCHANT OF VENICE 155 

ings in Venice, not only presented a faithful tran- 
script of selected beauties of the "Sea Cybele," but 
constituted a magnificent pageant. The principal 
scenes were the Rialto, the Church of San Giovanni, 
the Place of St. Mark, a Hall in Portias House at 
Belmont, and the Hall of the Senate. The first 
Rialto scene was animated by the passage to and fro 
of many persons, intent on various occupations, and 
it was happily suggestive of the actual life of the 
city. On April 12, 1869, Booth effected another 
fine revival of "The Merchant of Venice," this time 
at Booth's Theatre, New York. In making an acting 
version of "The Merchant" he followed a custom 
which had long prevailed, cutting the play in such a 
manner as to make it serviceable cliiefly to the promi- 
nence of Shyloch and ending it ^vith the Jew's exit, 
at the close of the Trial Scene, — the last words 
spoken being those of Gratiano, — "To bring thee to 
the gallows, not the font." That version he used for 
many years, but after forming his professional 
alliance with Lawrence Barrett, in 1887, he rectified 
his stage copy, and, influenced hy the example of 
Henry Irving, restored the end of the Fourth Act, 
and also the whole of the Fifth Act, — excepting 
only those few lines in it of indelicate speech, which 
good taste does not tolerate and always must exclude. 
It was my privilege, in association with Edwin 



156 SHAKESPEARE OX THE STAGE 

Booth, to edit, — 1877-78, — the sixteen plays that con- 
stituted his customar}^ repertory, and those plays 
were subjects of our frequent discussion. At that 
time my views of the character of Shylock were 
colored by the ingenious and persuasive but fanciful 
expositions of it that had been set forth by such 
authoritative writers as Hermann Ulrici, Ludwdg 
Boerne, and Victor Hugo, and I urged Booth to present 
a majestic Hebrew of the old Bible. I was mistaken. 
His ideal, on the contrarj% had been then derived 
exclusively from Shakespeare, and it was correct. 
There was pathos, at certain moments, in his persona- 
tion of Shylock, but it was the spontaneous, involun- 
tary ebulhtion of his innate sensibility, and in 
particular it chanced itself in the exquisite melody of 
his sympathetic voice: he touched the hearts of his 
hearers because he could not help doing so. At cer- 
tain times, indeed, the dehvery of Booth was perfunc- 
tory, languid, tame: he was an uneven actor and of 
many moods, not a machine: but no words can 
describe the glow of his spirit and the music of his 
tones when once his feelings had been fully aroused 
through that sympathy with which a powerful imagina- 
tion can inspire the mind. His impersonation of 
Shylock blended subtle craft with grim humor, but 
also it blended burning passion with Oriental dignity; 
and his method was, in various particulars, original. 



THE :MEIICHAXT of A^XICE 157 

The custom had been for Shylock to make his first 
entrance following Bassanio. Booth began the scene 
with a picture: Shylock was "discovered" standing, 
midway, on a short, broad flight of steps, where he had 
at that moment paused, at mention of the sum of money 
which Bassanio wished him to lend to Antonio, and 
Bassanio was visible, in the act of turning away, as 
if impatient at the Jezc^s hesitation. Thus poised, 
Shylock spoke his first words, "Three thousand 
ducats — Well?" Then, as the colloquy proceeded, 
Shylock advanced, Antonio entered, and the climax 
of the scene was reached in Booth's fervid delivery 
of the apostrophe to the Merchant, in which sup- 
pressed passion burned and glowed beneath a glit- 
ter of sarcasm. The First Act was ended with 
another picture, — Antonio and Bassanio departing 
together, and Shylock, at first, moving in the contrary 
direction, then pausing to turn and gaze after them, 
with a look of horrible hate and gesture of menace, 
as he spoke the hues, transposed from the Jailer's 
Scene (Act III., Sc. 3) : 

" Thou call'dst me dog, before thou hadst a cause ; 
But, since I am a dog, bewaee my fangs ! " 

The humanity of the man he embodied was vitiated 
by evil, but it was humanity. The thrilling dramatic 
effects that he caused were provided in the tremendous 



158 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

speech which begins "To bait fish withal" and ends 
with "It shall go hard but I will better the instruc- 
tion," and in the horrid ejaculation of wicked triumph, 
— exultant, jubilant, inexpressibly terrible, — of Shy- 
loch's joy on hearing of Antonio's losses: "I thank God! 
I thank God!" In the Trial Scene his movements were 
slow, precise, exact, predominant, massive, as of inexo- 
rable power; his face was rigid and pale; his eyes 
burned darkly; there was an occasional tinge of grisly 
humor in his delivery: the total effect was that of the 
vibrant, observant poise of a deadly reptile, aware 
of its lethal potency, and in no haste, although unal- 
terably determined, to make use of it. 

The dress that Booth wore when acting Shyloch 
was distinctively Hebraic and strikingly expressive 
of Oriental character. It comprised a long, close- 
fitting gown, dark green in color; a dark brown 
gabardine, with flowing sleeves and a hood; a scarf, 
of variegated colors, twisted around the waist so as 
to form a girdle; a leather pouch, dependent from the 
scarf; pointed shoes, of red leather; a Phrygian cap, 
having a turned-up rim, about two inches wide; ear- 
rings; several finger rings, and a ring on the thumb 
of the left hand. The face was made up thin and 
haggard. The beard was grizzled. The head, — in 
the actor's earlier days, — was dressed with a "black- 
bald" wig; later, with a gray wig, bald on the crown. 




Courtesy of E cert Jaiisen Wendell 

EDWIN BOOTH AS SHYLOCK 

FROM THE DRAWING BY W. J. HENNESSEY 



THE MERCHANT OF VENICE 159 

In his right hand he carried a long, gnarled staff. 
His appearance, as fittingly described by liimself, 
was "grotesque," but also it was tragic. The picture 
of Booth drawn by that conscientious, sympathetic, 
felicitous artist William J. Hennesy, in 1872, — one 
of a series made to illustrate a book of mine called 
"Edwin Booth in Twelve Dramatic Characters," — 
shows exactly his make-up and appearance in the 
part, and especially it exhibits the "grotesque" aspect 
which, especially in early life, he imputed to the Jew, 
and which he intentionally emphasized in present- 
ment: but that picture, useful and instructive though 
it is, does not convey any impression of Booth's final 
ideal of Shylock, or signify in the least the lurid 
passion and terrific power with which that ideal was 
embodied by him. 

VARIOUS PERFORMERS. 

Many assumptions of Shyloch have been shown on 
the stage, in England and America, since the time 
of Macklin, some of which might repay a studious 
examination, even though commentary on them should 
compel a monotonous ringing of the changes between 
miscreant and martyr, — Shyloch having been presented 
in both ways. Names that are more or less con- 
spicuously associated with the part in the annals of the 



160 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

English Theatre are those of Colley Gibber, Lacy 

Ryan, Rosco, Richard Yates, William Smith, 

John Philip Kemble, Joseph George Holman, Edward 
Shuter, West Digges, Thomas Sheridan, Thomas King, 
Stephen Kemble, George Bennett, William Dowton, — 
who is said to have assumed the Jew by request of Lord 
Byron, and who was practically laughed off the stage, 
— George Bartley, Thomas Ryder, John Harley, 
Robert William Elliston, Charles John Kean, Gus- 
tavus Vaughan Brooke, Samuel Phelps, John Ryder, 
and Herman Vezin. On the American Stage "The 
Merchant of Venice" was performed for the first 
time, September 5, 1752, at Williamsburg, Virginia, 
— being the second of the plays of Shakespeare acted 
in America. Notable performers of Shyloch in the 
early days of the American Theatre were John Henry 
and Thomas Abthorpe Cooper. Later representatives 
of the part were John Vandenhoff, 1840; James 
Booth Roberts, 1846; Charles W. Couldock, 1853; 
James William Wallack, 1855; Edward Loomis 
Davenport; John McCullough, Lawrence BaiTett, 
Richard Mansfield, Robert Mantell, and Edward 
Hugh Sothern. Shyloch was acted in New York 
by Macready in 1844, and by Charles Kean in 
1845. Couldock, when first he played the part in 
the American capital, appeared at Castle Garden. 
When "The Merchant of Venice" was produced at 



THE MERCHANT OF VENICE 161 

Wallack's Theatre, — the old Broadway and Broome 
Street house, — in 1858, it held the stage thirty-three 
nights and that was recorded as "a longer run than 
ever before enjoyed by a Shakespearean production." 
The elder Wallack acted Shylock, — ^his son Lester 
Wallack acting Bassanio, and Mrs. Hoey (Josephine 
Shaw) Portia. Many years afterward, Lester Wal- 
lack, speaking to me of that performance, said that his 
father "was best in Shylockf representing him as an 
injured, suffering man, and deeply affecting the feel- 
ings of his audience. That method of acting Shylock 
has been pursued by most of the foreign actors who 
have essayed the part in America. 



FOREIGN ACTORS. 
BANDMANN.— DAWISON.— NOVELLI. 

Among the presentments of Shylock which have 
been given upon the American Stage by European 
actors, speaking foreign languages, the most notable 
were those of Daniel Edward Bandmann, — who, how- 
ever, acted the part in both German and English, — 
Bogumil Dawison, Ernst von Possart, and Ermete 
Novelli. Bandmann, a Jew, of German lineage, 
asserted the majestic HebreAv racial ideal, and being, in 
his youth, a wild enthusiast, gave a performance that 



162 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

was fraught with hectic, ever-varying emotion and 
physical force. Possart presented a similar ideal with 
better art. Dawison, — who, on the German Stage, was 
accounted second only to the renowned Devrient, — 
much excelled them both. He acted the part in such 
a way as to exemplify the concrete results obtained 
in the portrayal of it according to German theatrical 
custom. Novelli illustrated the Italian view of the 
character. 

The first performance of Shylock given in America 
by Dawison occurred at the Stadt Theatre, New York, 
September 30, 1866, and by his compatriots it was 
received with enthusiastic approbation and extolled as 
one of eminent worth. The chief merits of it were 
authority and executive skill. The chief defect of it 
was an indefinable yet clearly perceptible pettiness 
in the quality, fibre, or essence of the character. 
Whatever else Shylock may not be, he is terrible. 
Dawison's embodiment evinced duplicity, greed, and 
implacable malignity, but, notwithstanding his uncom- 
mon advantages of physical stature and intellectual 
force, it was not terrific. In the nature of a man who, 
— at great risk, in the centre of a community bitterly 
hostile to his race and specially inimical to himself, — 
will, at the sacrifice of almost every advantage he 
might please to exact, continuously persist in a course 
of murderous cruelty, intent to "have the heart" of 



THE MERCHANT OF VENICE 163 

his victim, there is nothing puny. Dawison's expres- 
sion of his ideal was generally beautiful in its skill: 
the dress was skilfully fashioned to accentuate the 
height and leanness of the figure; the elocution was 
exact, fluent, and consistent, marked by a slight accent, 
intended to denote that Shylock is a foreigner in 
Venice, and that accent was intensified in moments 
of vehement utterance. The business with the knife, 
in the Trial Scene, when, after fumbling for it, Shy- 
lock produced it from a pouch, was artificial and 
clumsy, yet the modelling, the process of sculpture, 
was, in general, superb. There was no use of trans- 
parency, — no impartment of the Jew's subtle, deadly 
venom, making it obvious to the spectators, while con- 
cealing it from the dramatic interlocutors. Dawison's 
Shylock, like many others which have been seen, did 
not, in facial aspect, disclose any trace of the ravages 
of evil passions long privately indulged and more 
fiercely convulsive of the mind because pent up and 
hidden. The making of his bargain with Antonio was 
shrewd and tricky, rather than speciously crafty. In 
the Second Act he was unimportant. In the Street 
Scene he was fiery and effective. In the Trial Scene 
he concentrated attention upon himself not only by 
his personal magnetism, but by an arrangement of the 
stage which crowded the other characters into the 
background and the corners. As a whole the persona- 



164 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

tion remains in memory as an able and effective dis- 
play of an incorrect and inadequate ideal. 

The attempt to act Shylock that was made by the 
Italian comedian Novelli was mournfully abortive. 
That eminent foreign performer made his first appear- 
ance on the American Stage, in Boston, in 1907, and 
on March 17, that year, appeared for the first time 
in New York, at the Lyric Theatre, acting in a play 
called "Papa Lebonnard." Later he presented him- 
self in a concoction which was obtruded as Shake- 
speare's tragedy of "King Lear," and still later he 
produced a version of "The Merchant of Venice," 
understood to have been made by himself, and 
appeared as Shylock. His dress comprised long 
trousers, a short jacket, a cloak, a large turban, and 
a profusion of long gray hair and beard. His ideal 
of the character was seen to be simply ignominious, 
his Shylock being nothing more than a trivial Jew 
pawnbroker. He was neither tremendous as the 
representative of inexorable Mosaic Law nor terrible 
as the pursuer of a murderous revenge. The fable 
of the original play remained; the conduct of it had 
been so materially altered that all continuity was 
broken and nothing survived but a hybrid, tediously 
episodical patchwork. Shylock was converted into 
an eccentric low comedy part, a trivial trickster, a sly 
contriver of mischief, a commonplace creature of low 



THE MERCHANT OF VENICE 165 

cunning and petty spite. The method pursued in 
the action was that which is miscalled "natural." The 
style was finical, a confused style, full of spasmodic 
gesture and grimace, inclusive of much spreading and 
pointing of the fingers, much shaking of the legs, much 
teetering, much pulling of mugs and wagging of 
beards, much facial contortion, much confidential whis- 
pering, and generally inappropriate detail. Shylock 
first appeared on the balcony of liis house, in response 
to a call from Bassanio: he then descended and came 
into the street to discuss the business of the loan. 
He snared his Christian oppressors, — who were easily 
snared, — in a vein of coarse pleasantry. While con- 
ferring as to the desired loan he fumbled a string 
of gems, which were a part of his apparel, — the 
apparel, that is, of a wily usurer who, in Shake- 
speare's play, is scrupulous to declare that he must 
borrow money in order to lend it. After he had 
agreed to lend the money he departed, arm-in-arm, 
with Bassanio and Antonio, as though, in amity and 
social equality, they were going to "the notary's": in 
Shakespeare's text, it is expressly appointed that they 
shall meet there. When Shylock gave his keys to 
Jessica he hitched them to a string that she had let 
down to him, from the balcony, and by that same 
string Jessica presently let down the box of ducats 
and jewels which she steals, in her elopement. Signor 



166 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

Novelli's Shyloch was also a highly sensitive father, 
shedding copious tears over his daughter's flight. 
Much of the tempestuous Street Scene was played 
by him in a sitting posture, the Jew telling beads 
while he gasped, hissed, and wheezed, — the sequence 
of the scene being destroyed by transpositions. When 
Shyloch recited the passage, "if a Jew wrong a Christ- 
ian," Signor Novelli rose from a seated attitude, 
moved into the centre of the stage, and beckoned to 
Salarino and Salanio, twiddling the four fingers of 
each hand, palm down, with a crab-like motion, to 
summon them, — ^to which summons those Christians, 
with a compliance truly wonderful in the Venice of 
the period, at once obediently responded: and then 
he delivered the great speech as though arguing about 
the price of a second-hand waistcoat. When he heard 
of the losses of Antonio his expedient was to dance, 
infirmly, with senile joy. At the parting with Tubal 
he pursued that Israelite, shouting "At our syna- 
gogue" while off the stage, and then returned, pranc- 
ing and teetering, in the manner of Pantaloon in the 
pantomime. In the Trial Scene he sat on the steps, 
before the desk of Balthasar, and, removing one of 
his red morocco slippers, laid it across his lap, sharp- 
ened his knife on it, and then, plucking a hair from 
his beard, tried the edge of the knife, in the manner 
of a barber. When he was offered the choice between 



THE MERCHANT OF VENICE 167 

death and apostasy, he allowed spittle to drool 
over his beard; then, almost in collapse, he tottered 
out of the Court, but immediately returned, strong 
and insolent, and hurled a defiance at the Doge such 
as would have caused his instant incarceration if not 
his doom of death. If an English-speaking actor were 
to offer such a performance as Novelli did and 
call it Shylock, he would be overwhelmed with ridicule. 
Presented by an Italian actor it was considerably 
applauded and not a little commended in print. 

DAVENPORT.— McCULLOUGH.— BARRETT. 

Davenport was one of the best of American actors, 
and, in point of versatility, one of the most extraordi- 
nary actors of whom record exists, — having been 
equally proficient and admirable in tragedy, comedy, 
and farce. His impersonation of Sir Giles Overreach 
nearly equalled that of the elder Booth, — with whom, 
in youth, he acted and whose example he followed, 
in that part, — and it has not been rivalled. His 
impersonation of Shakespeare's Brutus remained 
peerless until Edwin Booth assumed that character. 
As Duke Aranza, in "The Honeymoon," he was per- 
fection. His Hamlet was, for many years, accepted 
as a true embodiment of the melancholy Dane. His 
performance of Macbeth blended poetry of ideal, 



168 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

imaginative treatment, and competent physical power, 
and it was one of the most impressive portrayals of 
that supremely difficult part ever given on our stage. 
Davenport acted Shyloch, in a four-act version of 
the comedy, but his ideal was contradictory, and his 
expression of it lacked consistency. In the earlier 
scenes his Shylock was a crafty, evil schemer; in the 
middle scenes he became an image of incarnate ferocity, 
— the actor then yielding himself to the tragic mood 
and employing the tragic method, liberating a frenzied 
fury of wounded avarice and savage, murderous 
hatred, and causing an effect of wild excitement; at 
the last, abruptlj^, he assumed the guise of the majestic 
Hebrew, the authentic representative of his "sacred 
nation," the ordained avenger of an outraged race 
and religion. The portrayal, accordingly, while full 
of professional talent, exemplified only a fruitless 
effort to blend and unify opposed and irreconcilable 
attributes. The words of Shylock were, to Davenport, 
as familiar as the alphabet, j^et in utterance he often 
jumbled or transposed them. He did not much care 
for the part and his best powers were not evoked by it. 
In person he was tall, massive, and handsome, having 
a thoughtful face, regular features, blue eyes, a strong, 
melodious voice, and an engaging manner. Like many 
other tragedians whom I have known, he was, in 
private life, genial and humorous. 



THE MERCHANT OF VENICE 169 

John JMcCullough's repertory included Shyloch, but 
his performance of the Jew was conventional and, 
comparatively, unimportant. Like Davenport, he was, 
by temperament, antipathetic to the character, and 
he could not get inside of it. He copied the model 
set by Edwin Forrest, employing the customary busi- 
ness and making the customary points. Both McCul- 
lough and Davenport required, for absolutely the most 
predominant, winning expression of which they were 
capable, parts which implicate the heart, the affections, 
the noble, the manly, the heroic, the magnanimous 
conditions and aspects of human nature, — such parts 
as Othello, Virginius, and Damon. Davenport, indeed, 
by means of his thorough, practised art and his 
keen, perceptive intellect, triumphed also in other 
realms, but his most influential achievements were those 
of good, not evil. 

Lawrence Barrett's impersonation of Shyloch was 
among the best that have been seen. He had profited 
by the example of Edwin Booth, and he was, indeed, 
one of the most conspicuous examples of the active 
influence of that wonderful man. He rejected the 
theory which would endeavor to make the Jew an 
austere image of retributive Justice, and embodied 
him correctly, as the implacable avenger of personal 
wrongs, — presenting, at first under a cold, crafty yet 
specious exterior but later without disguise, a fierce and 



170 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

dangerous nature, full of hatred and malice, a darkly 
and wildly passionate man, intent on revenge and inexo- 
rable in his resolve to obtain it. His personation, 
however, is chiefly memorable for exactness and 
beauty of execution, not for originality of ideal or 
treatment. He had studied the traditional business 
devised by Edmund Kean and also that of the elder 
Booth, practically all of which, at one time or another, 
was transmitted by Edwin Booth, and in using much 
of that business, and in following the examples 
selected, he splendidly evinced that fine intellect, 
intense feeling, and copious nervous energy for which 
he was remarkable. His delivery of the speech begin- 
ning "To bait fish withal!" was a whirlwind of 
passion: his demeanor throughout the Trial Scene was 
that of invincible authority, deadly purpose, and secret 
exultation, which contrasted with his final exit and 
made it finely pathetic in effect. In the death of 
Lawrence Barrett, which was sudden, — befalling on 
March 20, 1891, almost at the moment when he could 
have commanded and shaped the destiny of our 
Theatre, which he would have done, had he lived, as 
absolutely as Henry Irving did that of the British 
Theatre, — the American Stage suffered a prodigious, 
an afflicting, and an almost irretrievable disaster. 



THE MERCHANT OF VENICE 171 

CHARACTER OF SHYLOCK. 

Two considerable reasons for the enduring popu- 
larity of Shylock are the startling authenticity of the 
character as a complete exponent of human hatred, 
and the absolute excellence of the part as a medium 
for dramatic impersonation. That celestial humility 
which, when wrongfully stricken upon the face, can 
and does "turn the other cheek" involves a wondrous 
element of self-control and lovely patience, and, 
theoretically, it is practicable. The iron doctrine of 
the Law, "An eye for an eye and a tooth for a 
tooth," on the other hand, is eminently human, and 
unregenerated humanity cordially approves and gen- 
erally acts upon it. The notion that Shylock's conduct 
can be justified is preposterous, notwithstanding the 
vindicatory arguments that have been put into his 
mouth. There is abundant reason for his conduct. 
Persecuted the "sacred nation" unquestionably had 
been, when Shakespeare wrote "The Merchant of 
Venice," and persecuted it continues to be, in some 
places, — although, in America, it is rapidly coming 
into possession of its inheritance, the Earth, — and 
certainly it is no longer remarkable for sufferance or 
humility. Shyloch, enduring with patient fortitude 
and without rancor the insults and injuries heaped 



172 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

upon him, would be one of the noblest and most 
sympathetic characters in literature. The wrongs to 
which he is subjected neither justify nor extenuate his 
proceedings, but his rehearsal of them does irresisti- 
bly appeal to the sense of "fair play," and that 
tremendous speech beginning "Hath not a Jew eyes? " 
is overwhelming in its cogent reasoning and lurid elo- 
quence: it crystallizes the whole being of Shylock 
into a gem of light, and it remains, and will always 
remain, the final word on the subject of his character. 
It is a marvel of rhetoric. It scorches like devouring 
flame. It shrivels and annihilates all the sentimental 
sophistry with which mistaken theorists have tried to 
invest the character. It is superlative, whether for 
logic, passion, or the spontaneous, fiery ejaculation of 
inveterate malignity: and it prevails. It states Shy- 
locTis motive, — Hate, inspired by wrong: and it states 
his purpose, — Revenge, not Vengeance. The Jew is 
abhorrent and detestable, but he is "within his rights"; 
and whenever he is greatly represented, notwithstand- 
ing his infernal wickedness, he possesses a horrible 
grandeur, as the emblem of ten'or and the example 
of that retributive ruin which inevitably overtakes 
those persons who seek revenge. " 'Vengeance is 
mine,' saith the Lord: *I will repay.' " 

Those strenuous efforts which were begun long ago, 
on the stage, to read into the character of Shylock 



THE MERCHANT OF VENICE 173 

various genial attributes which are alleged to be 
elemental in humanity, — affection, parental solicitude, 
pious devotion, and the like, — have been industriously 
continued in recent times. The Jew, it is asserted, 
has been an ardent lover and a good husband; is a 
good father; is devout; is fraternal with other Israel- 
ites; is exemplary as a citizen; keeps a "sober house"; 
frequents the synagogue, and respects the laws. Those 
assertions are transparently irrelevant. Aside from 
the allusion to Leah's ring, — "I would not have given 
it for a wilderness of monkeys," — there is nothing in 
the play to suggest affection on the part of Shy lock 
for his dead wife: his daughter specifically describes 
their home as "hell," and there is no word spoken 
or action performed to warrant the ascription to Shy- 
lock of anj^ qualities except such as appertain to a 
bigoted, perverted mind, an embittered heart, a 
nature saturated with guile and malice and cor- 
roded by resentful suffering through long years of 
oppression and by the consuming fires of evil passion. 
Shylock deceitfully cajoles Bassanio into consenting 
that Antonio shall sign the bond, by declaring that he 
would not, under any circumstances, exact the pen- 
alty. He expressly declares that the transaction is 
a jest, — "a merry sport." AVhen suggesting this 
"merry bond" to Antonio, he carelessly specifies 
that, 



174 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

" If you repay me not on such a day, 
In such a place, such sum or sums as are 
Express'd in the condition, let the forfeit 
Be nominated for an equal pound 
Of your fair flesh, to be cut off and taken 
In what part of your body pleaseth me " ; 

but when the bond has become forfeit and is pro- 
duced in Court the fact appears that, in the actual 
execution of it, the Jew has been scrupulously careful 
to insert in it a deadly exactitude of specification: the 
pound of flesh is to be cut from the merchant's 
"breast"; — "Nearest his heart: those are the very 
words!" He plainly declares his purpose in com- 
passing the death of his enemy: that purpose is not 
only Revenge but the obtainance of a clear field for 
usury. "Were he out of Venice, I could make what 
merchandise I would." Whatever Shyloch may 
originally have been (and in every form of evil that 
comes through human birth there is some admixt- 
ure of good), he has become incarnate wickedness, 
and he is not the less a monstrous villain because he 
is an insulted man and a legal creditor. 



HENRY IRVING. 

The most thoroughly consistent, absorbingly interest- 
ing, and decisively paramount impersonation of Shyloch 



THE MERCHANT OF VENICE 175 

that has been seen within the last sixty years, — and, in 
its maturity, as I believe, after weighing the recorded 
evidence, the best ever given, — was that of Henry 
Irving. That great actor had studied the subject with 
microscopic scrutiny, and he knew every fibre of it. His 
opinion relative to the earlier performances of the part 
was expressed to me in the remark that, as far as his 
reading and observation had enabled him to judge, 
Henderson was the greatest of the actors of the Gar- 
rick period, and I believe he considered that Hender- 
son gave the true ideal. "Shyloch" he said, in my 
presence, "is a bloody-minded monster, — but you 
mustn't play him so, if you wish to succeed; you 
must get some sympathy with him." In old times 
"The Merchant of Venice" was invariably offered for 
the sake of Shylock alone, and with that purpose it 
was cut and condensed. In Henry Irving's version it 
was given for the sake of all that it contains, and 
given, substantially, as Shakespeare wrote it; and 
when it is thus given, — that is, not merely with single 
design to display the semi-tragical Jew, but also with 
intelligent purpose to exhibit and enforce its con- 
stituents of pure, high comedy, — the romantic story of 
Portia becomes the most engaging part of it, and the 
character of Portia becomes conspicuous. In Irving's 
presentment of it a fine equilibrium was preserved 
between the parts, and while the bloodthirsty Jew, 



176 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

intent on obtaining his pound of flesh, was kept at a 
proportional level, the serene presence of Portia 
dominated an enchanting picture of friendship vindi- 
cated and love fulfilled, — the massive weight and 
propulsive force of Shylock, nevertheless, remaining 
unimpaired: Portia was the fascination: Shylock was 
the power. 

Irving's production of "The Merchant of Venice" 
was first effected at the London Lyceum Theatre, on 
November 1, 1879, and it was first shown in America, 
at the Star Theatre, New York, on November 6, 1883. 
The expenditure of money on this revival was 
small, — only $60,000, — but the setting was made 
with exact knowledge, sound judgment, and super- 
lative taste, and artistically it was the most elaborate 
and complete presentment of this play that has 
been seen. Special felicities of investiture and detail 
in it were the pictures of the Place of St. Mark; the 
passing and repassing of traders on the Rialto; the 
almost spectral gondolas, gliding along a shadowy 
canal; the opulent variety of the scenes in Portias 
House, at Belmont; the use of clashing cymbals, 
making wild, Oriental music, to signalize the arrival 
and departure of the Prince of Morocco; Shyloch's 
grim return to his desolated home, wliich, during his 
absence, had been despoiled by his treacherous daughter 
and her lover, — a return effected in gathering gloom, 



THE MERCHANT OF VENICE 177 

immediately after an episode of tumultuous revelry, 
the distant sounds of music being still faintly audible, 
— a poetically effective treatment, devised by Irving, 
which has since been copied in almost every represen- 
tation of the comedy; the restoration of Shylock's 
scene with the Jailer and Antonio^ — time and oppor- 
tunity being thus, by implication, duly allowed for 
the marriages of Bassanio and Portia and Gratiano 
and Nerissa; the opulent pageantry of the Venetian 
Court; and the lovely, moon-lit summer-night picture 
of Portia's Garden. 

When lining first acted Shylock he manifested a 
poetically humanitarian ideal of the part, and, like 
those eminently pictorial actors, his predecessors in 
the character, Robert William Elliston and James 
William Wallack (whom he had never seen, but of 
whom, naturally, he possessed the tradition), he indi- 
cated the Jew as the venerable Hebrew patriarch, the 
lonelj^ grieved widower, and the affectionate, while aus- 
tere, father. He failed not, indeed, to present Shylock 
as the vengeful representative antagonist of intolerant 
Christian persecution of the Jewish race and religion, 
but he personated a man, originally humane, who had 
become embittered by cruel injustice, without having 
entirelj^ lost the essential attributes of average hu- 
manity. His garments were scrupulously arranged, 
his aspect was neat, Ms demeanor was formal, — even 



178 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

to the extent of suggesting the "smug" decorum at 
which he sneers, when describing Antonio ("That used 
to come so smug upon the mart"), his action was 
restrained, and in the fundamental, propulsive motive 
of his performance there was more of racial oppug- 
nancy than of personal hatred. As time passed, how- 
ever, a radical change in the personation was, little 
by little effected, till at last, without entire abandon- 
ment of a purpose and power to awaken sympathy, 
it became the true Shylock of Shakespeare — ^hard, 
merciless, inexorable, terrible. Thus matured, Irving's 
Jew was a man upon whom, — while his every thought 
was colored and every purpose directed by racial 
antipathy and religious fanaticism, — social oppression 
had so wrought as to develop only the most radically 
evil propensities; a representative Hebrew, who, while 
revering, "our sacred nation," swearing by '^our holy 
Abraham," and "our holy Sabbath," having "an oath 
in heaven" and urging the sanctity of it, is animated 
by the wicked purpose of a murderous personal 
revenge. The work of art which shows the possible 
depravity of human nature should justify its exhibition 
by an impartment of warning, by an inherent admoni- 
tory exposition of the bleak, miserable loneliness of the 
soul that has succumbed to Evil, the corrosive, wither- 
ing effect, alike upon the physical system and the 
spiritual being, of that fatal surrender to sin which 



THE MERCHANT OF VENICE 179 

abandons the heart to wicked passions. Irving's 
mature, final embodiment of Shylock imparted that 
warning, and in such a way as to impress it on the 
memory forever: and it was by means of the moral 
influence thus exerted in association with the charm of 
his magnetic personality that the actor excited pity 
and gained a certain rueful sympathy with a character 
that is terrible, displayed in conduct that is monstrous. 
The consummate skill of Irving, informed by pro- 
found knowledge of human nature and guided by 
unerring judgment, wrought every essential detail, 
however minute, into every fabric of dramatic art that 
he presented, but perhaps his portrayal of Shylock, 
more distinctively than any other single work of his, 
excepting Becket, exemplified his marvellous faculty 
of impersonation, — that faculty as to which, con- 
sidering breadth of range, wisdom of choice, precision 
of touch, and uniformity and thoroughness of execu- 
tion, he was unequalled in our time, and, prob- 
ably, has not been equalled in any period or in any 
land. 

Irving's Shylock entered, for the first time, pre- 
ceding Bassanio, who, obviously, had found him in 
the mart and spoken to him about a loan of money. 
He was seen to be a man stricken in years — his 
shoulders a little bowed, his knees a little bent, 
his face lined and wrinkled, his hair gray, — "old 



180 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

Shylock" in every detail, — but hardy, resolute, 
formidable, possessing the steel-sinewy, nervous vitality 
of the Hebrew race, and animated by indomitable 
will. His aspect was distinctively Jewish, and it 
was Orientally pictorial. His demeanor revealed a 
mind intensely interested, veiUng that interest by a 
crafty assumption of indifference. His detested 
enemy had applied to him, to borrow money: that 
fact was singular, was astonishing; there might be 
no consequence in it, or there might proceed from it 
the opportunity, for which he had long hungered and 
thirsted, to strike that enemy dead. Bassanio must be 
made to repeat his request, and the matter must be 
carefully considered. One skirt of the Jew's gabar- 
dine, — a garment of rich material but of sober hue 
and well-worn, — was caught up at the side and held 
in the right hand, which also held a black crutch- 
stick, grasping it near the middle and more as though 
it were a weapon than a prop. Throughout the open- 
ing scene the mention by Shylock of the ducats desired 
by Antonio was made in a lingering, caressing tone, 
involuntarily expressive of his love of money, and the 
thumb and first two fingers of whichever hand hap- 
pened to be free, — for he shifted his staff occa- 
sionally from one hand to the other, — were, from time 
to time, moved slowly, as though in the act of counting 
coins. The first speech, "Three thousand ducats — 




From a photograph by Lock and nk.tfieUl 



HENRY IRVING AS SH.YLOCK 



THE MERCHANT OF VENICE 181 

Well?" only noted the sum, with an accent of inquiry; 
the second speech, "For three months: — ^Well?" indi- 
cated watchful expectation of sometliing to follow; 
but the third speech, ''Antonio shall become bound/' 
was uttered with a strong emphasis on the merchant's 
name and on the word "bound," accompanied by a 
momentary flash of lurid fire in the dark, piercing, 
baleful eyes, a quick contraction of the muscles of 
arms and hands, instantly succeeded by a perfect 
resumption of self-control, as the calm, cold voice, 
reiterated the recurring question, "Well?" The utter- 
ance of the declaration "I will be assured I may" was 
sharp, incisive, almost fierce, but the tone quicldy 
softened in delivery of the words that immediately 
follow. The rebuff beginning "Yes, to smell pork," 
was ejaculated in a bitter tone of contemptuous pro- 
test, till the close, when the words "nor pray with you" 
were spoken in accents of deep solemnity. Then Shy- 
lock saw and recognized the approaching figure of 
Antonio, — a fact signified in the expression of his 
face, before he asked, with an entire change of manner, 
in a nonchalant, indifferent way, "What news on the 
Rialto?" He then raised his left hand, as though to 
shade his eyes, and gazed intently into the distance, 
saying "Who is he comes here?" There was in the 
action of Irving's Shylock, at that and at some other 
points, a viperous impartment of the Jew's inherent 



182 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

treachery and deep-seated malice — the dupUcity which 
is characteristically false in circumstances in which it 
would be much easier to be true. Bassanio left the 
scene, to meet his friend Antonio, while Shylock, alone, 
delivered the self -communing speech which follows, 
not as an "aside," but as a soliloquy, gazing malevo- 
lently at the Christian friends, and contemptuously 
mimicking their greeting of one another. The line "How 
like a fawning publican he looks!" was spoken with 
a loathing sneer, a peculiar long, soft emphasis of con- 
tempt and scorn being laid on the word "fawning," 
but that sneer instantly gave place to a glare of 
reptile hate, as the avowal of bitterest animosity 
was harshly snarled forth, with significant and appro- 
priate stress on the second word of the second line: 

*' I hate him, for he is a Christian, 
But MORE, for that, in low simplicity. 
He lends out money gratis.** 

Shyloch was shown to be aware of the Merchant's 
approach, but also he was shown to assume, because of 
sheer, innate duplicity, an air of preoccupation, as 
though ignorant of the contiguity of the man whom 
thus he hated and denounced. His greeting to 
Antonio was that of cringing humility, and when he 
mentioned the feasibility of borrowing money from 
Tubal, "a wealthy Hebrew" of his tribe, he lapsed into 



THE MERCHANT OF VENICE 183 

the condition of the sordid, specious, wily money- 
lender, incapable, from force of the habit of trickery, 
of anytliing like fair and open dealing. His manner 
became formal and his articulation sharply incisive, 
when saying "I had forgot — three months," — a pause, 
and then an intent look at Bassanio, — "You told me 
so." The Jew's defence of usury was made with 
a slow, ruminative insistence on the details of the 
Biblical story of Jacob's thrift. The trenchant rebuke 
to Antonio was begun with an assumption of judicial 
restraint, a certain dignity, but, as the delivery of it 
proceeded, the feeling became intense, the utterance 
bitter, mordant, and fiery, such as might well incite 
the Merchunt's angry retort; but at "Why, look you, 
how you storm," the manner of the Jew, — his rage 
repressed by a sudden exertion of will, — became meek 
and ingratiating. When he said, "Your single bond," 
Shylockj over-eager, touched the breast of Antonio, 
who thereupon drew back, wrapping his cloak around 
liim, as though the touch of the Jew were a contamina- 
tion, and in the brief pause which ensued Shylock was 
seen to curb his resentful exasperation at being treated 
as if he were a leper, the obvious effort being fol- 
lowed by a copious glow of cordialitj^ in the offer 
of "kindness" and in the insidious proposal of the 
"merry bond." There was, in Irving's peculiar 
intonation and manner, when his Shylock said, "An 



184 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

equal pound of your fan flesh/' a suggestion of 
latent, sinister meaning, as if liis secret thought were, 
"If my touch contaminates you, perhaps I shall soon 
give you reason, indeed, to dread it!" His deliv- 
ery of "O father Abraham, what these Christians are!" 
was so convincingly honest and earnest, in its apparent 
candor, that it might have beguiled even the most 
distrustful of hearers. At the close of the scene, 
Antonio and Bassanio having parted from him, Shy- 
lock turned away, moved a few steps, paused, turned 
back, glared after his foes, raised his crutch-stick and 
shook it, in menace, with a look of frightful hatred, 
maldng such an illuminative picture of the character 
as only the brush of inspired genius could convey. 

In Irving's arrangement of the comedy the Second 
Act contained three scenes, the second being devoted 
to Lorenzo's love affairs, and the third, exceptionally 
picturesque and illuminative, devoted to Shylock, 
in his relation to the incident of Jessicas elope- 
ment. In this latter scene the place represented was 
a street in front of Shylock's house. At the back a 
finely painted drop afforded a spacious view of 
romantic Venice, in the dim starlight. A high bridge, 
spanning a canal, extended across the stage, from the 
upper left-hand corner to a point forward on the right. 
The bridge was accessible by steps. At the right of 
and below it was a building, fashioned with a pro- 



THE MERCHANT OF VENICE 185 

jecting hood above the door, — the "pent house" men- 
tioned by Lorenzo. At the left of the stage, in the 
foreground, bordering the canal, was placed the house 
of Shylock, on the front of which was a prominent 
balcony. Launcelot and Shyloch entered from that 
dwelling, the former in haste and perturbation, as if 
retreating from his harsh employer. Shyloclis speech 
of dismissal to him, — "Well, thou shalt see," — was 
spoken by Irving in a strain of censorious sarcasm, and 
the Jew's parting from his daughter, immediately 
before her flight, was effected in a mood of 
querulous anxiety, Shylock showing himself oppressed 
by presentiment of impending disaster: "There is some 
ill a-brewing towards my rest." At mention of 
Bassanio, when Laimcelot said, "My young master 
doth expect your reproach," there was a quick acces- 
sion of severity in Shylock's face and demeanor, and 
the tone in which, to the menial's blundering speech, 
he replied "So do I — his" — was grim with expectancy 
of revenge. When he ended his authoritative delivery 
of the mandate, to Jessica, "Lock up my doors," he 
entered the house, was absent for a moment, and then 
returned, wearing a cloak and an orange-tawny, 
turban-like head-dress, and carrying a lantern and a 
staff. Hearing the voice of Launcelot, who was 
speaking in a hurried undertone to Jessica, but not 
hearing the words, he swiftly advanced to his daughter, 



186 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

as Launcelot sped away, seized her by the wrist, 
looked suspiciously upon her face and harshly put 
the question to her, — pointing with his stick after the 
departed servant, — "What says that fool of Hagar's 
offspring — ha?" Reassured by Jessicas ready lie, 
he turned from her, murmuring, "The patch is kind 
enough," and then, with the old proverb about the 
wisdom of precaution on his lips, ascended to the 
bridge and passed across it, out of sight. The elope- 
ment of Jessica with Lorenzo was then effected, in 
a gondola, which moved smoothly away in the canal, 
and the scene became tumultuous with a revel of 
riotous maskers, who sang, danced, frolicked, and 
tumbled in front of Shyloch's house, as though' 
obtaining mischievous pleasure in disturbing the 
neighborhood of the Jew's decorous dwelling. Soon 
that clamorous rabble streamed away; there was a 
lull in the music, and the grim figure of Shyloch, 
his staff in one hand, his lantern in the other, appeared 
on the bridge, where for an instant he paused, his 
seamed, cruel face, visible in a gleam of ruddy 
light, contorted by a sneer, as he listened to the 
sound of revelry dying away in the distance. Then 
he descended the steps, crossed to his dwelling, raised 
his right hand, struck twice upon the door with the 
iron knocker, and stood like a statue, waiting — while 
a slow-descending curtain closed in one of the most 



THE MERCHANT OF VENICE 187 

expressive pictures that any stage has ever pre- 
sented. 

Irving did not follow the Macklin tradition as to 
the acting of Shylock in the tremendous Street Scene 
of the Third Act, — the stage tradition, that is, which 
prescribes as imperative in that scene almost incessant 
movement, explosive vociferation, and lamentable and 
furious delirium. His reason, probably, was that he 
did not consider himself physically equal to the effort 
required by that method of treating the situation, or 
he may have deemed, and probably did deem, another 
method more effective upon the feelings of an audi- 
ence. The treatment which he devised and employed 
was wonderfully potent. The convulsive passion, 
liberating the man from every restraint of prudence 
and every expedient of duplicity and bursting forth 
in torrid eloquence, the derascinating conflict between 
outraged parental authority and the animal instinct of 
paternity, the overwhelming access of religious fanat- 
icism, the terrific wrath of despoiled avarice, and the 
savage determination to have a hellish revenge — all 
those shattering forces were implicated and displayed 
in Irving's acting of Shylock, in this tempestuous 
scene, with a spasmodic energy of natural emotion, 
transcending, in its power to excite pity while diffus- 
ing a sense of terror, any possible manifestation of 
mere physical excitement. When he entered, the "out- 



188 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

rageous passion" immediately consequent on his 
daughter's thievery and flight had somewhat abated. 
His dress was disordered. His gown (the cloak or 
gabardine had not been put on) was torn open at the 
throat, liis hair was dishevelled, his hands were 
clenched, his movements were swift, — the mental 
tempest venting itself in physical agitation, — and as 
he approached, the jeers of his Christian persecutors 
being faintly audible in the distance, he was snarling 
and muttering to himself. When he perceived the 
Christians, Salanio and Salarino, the comrades of 
Lorenzo and Bassanio, his fury flamed forth again, 
and the glare of hatred which he bent upon them 
was shocking in its infernal intensity. The exclama- 
tion, "My own flesh and blood to rebeir com- 
mingled relentless anger with astounded incredulity. 
There was comparatively little movement on the 
part of Shyloch, throughout this scene, — there was no 
yelling, and there was no rushing to and fro. The 
utterance of "There I have another — had match" 
expressed the infinite of loathing. The ominous words, 
"Let him look to his bond," were spoken in a lower 
tone than was used in speaking the associated 
sentences, and in the final iteration every word 
was uttered separately. "Let — ^him — look — to — his — 
hondr The furious response to Salarino's question 
about the flesh, "What's that good for?" came like a 



THE MERCHANT OF VENICE 189 

lightning flash, — "To bait fish withal!" and then, 
after a pause of suspense, ensued the torrid invective, 
the greatest of all Shylock's speeches, uttered at first 
in an almost suffocated voice, — "If it will feed nothing 
else it will feed my revenge," — but j)resently in the 
fluent tones of completely liberated passion. As the 
infuriated Jew proceeded the Christians involuntarily 
shrank from him and he slowly moved toward them, 
until he had fiercely enunciated the reply to his own 
question, "Why, revenge!" — at which point he 
whirled away and came down the stage in the opposite 
direction, twice ejaculating the word "Revenge," as if 
convulsed with delirium, and then he stopped and again 
turned on his enemies. Throughout that exacting 
scene Irving never lost control equally of the situa- 
tion and the audience, but held both in complete thrall, 
not pausing to allow the destructive interjection of 
applause, after the word "Revenge," — an interruption 
frequently permitted by performers of Shyloch, — but 
commanding his auditors till the superbly rounded 
close, "It shall go hard but I will better the instruc- 
tion!'^ which always elicited a tremendous burst of 
enthusiastic fervor. The awful picture of wrath 
which he had thus created was held by him for a 
moment, and then Shyloch seemed to become oblivious 
of the Christians, and, turning from them, encountered 
his associate and emissary, Tubal. That person came 



190 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

from the left of the stage, as Salanio and Salarino 
vanished at the right, and Shylock, meeting him, laid 
his left hand on TubaVs right arm, at the elbow, and 
his right hand on TubaVs left shoulder, and, so holding 
him and leaning on him, three times spoke his name: 
"How now. Tubal, Tubal, Tubal, — what news from 
Genoa?" Then, holding him off at arm's length, he 
asked, "Hast thou found my daughter?" The revela- 
tion of the indurated selfishness of Shylock's nature, 
in Irving's utterance of "The curse never fell upon 
our nation till now — I never felt it till now," was so 
complete as to be absolutely shocldng. There could 
be no doubt relative to his perception of the character. 
When Shylock, in the overwhelming anguish of self- 
pity, dwelt on the magnitude of his losses, he plucked 
open his robe, with the left hand, while with the right, 
firmly clenched, he convulsively smote himself, many 
times, delivering slow, heavy blows, on his naked breast. 
The momentary revulsion of feeling that Ii-ving per- 
mitted the Jew to indicate, after his frenzied invective 
relative to Jessica's ignominious robbery of his treasure 
and flight from his home, seemed to be an involuntary 
impulse not so much of human nature as of the animal 
propension toward its young. A kindred emphasis 
was placed on "No tears but of my shedding"; but 
the tears of Shylock are those of rancorous rage and 
furious desperation, not of wounded affection or grief. 



THE MERCHANT OF VENICE 191 

and that was the meaning Irving conveyed. The 
ejaculation, "What, what, what? ill luck, ill luck?'* 
was given with ferocious animation and joyous expect- 
ancy, and the wicked outcry, "I thank God, I 
thank God," with a horrible exuberance of delight, 
immediately succeeded by almost piteous doubt, 
at 'Hs it true? is it — true?" An effect of con- 
temptuous amusement followed his agonized groan, at 
Tuhal's mention of Jessicas extravagance and the 
abject meanness of the accents in which he moaned, "I 
shall never see my gold again." The repetition, "four- 
score ducats," was spoken in a semi-bewildered under- 
tone, as though the Jew could not credit the possibility 
of such wanton waste by his child. The supreme 
climax of the situation was reached and shown by 
means of sudden contrast, — fury abruptly succeeding 
lamentation, in the thrilling celerity with which he 
cried, "I am very glad of it: — I'll plague him: I'll 
torture him: I am glad of it," and the subsequent, "I 
will have the heart of him, if he forfeit." Persons who 
truly saw that frightful figure, — an authentic and 
terrific image of tragedy, — can never forget it, — the 
tall, attenuated form, the ghastly, pallid face, the deep- 
sunken, dark eyes, blazing with wrath, the jaws 
champing, the left hand turning the sleeve up on the 
right arm as far back as the elbow, and the fingers of 
the right hand stretched forth and quivering, as if 



192 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

already they were tearing out the heart of his hated 
enemy. The scene was rapidly rounded. Irving, 
although exceptional among actors for the perfect 
poise and massive authority which take fully and 
exactly the time required, be it ever so long, for the 
accomplishment of a purposed artistic result, never 
marred effect, whether great or small, by lingering 
unduly on an achievement once completed. 

Some time had been supposed to elapse prior to 
the scene of the Jew's colloquy with the Merchant, 
when Antonio walks abroad, in the Jailer's custody. 
Shylock's excitement had given place to cold, con- 
centrated determination of murder. In that scene 
Irving was incarnate cruelty. His attire was orderly, 
sober, correct; his demeanor obdurate. He evinced 
a calm, revolting pleasure in the rejection and 
suppression of the miserable Antonio's appeals, 
together with hectoring censure of the Jailer's 
clemency, in allowing his prisoner "to come abroad" 
for exercise. Throughout the Trial Scene his acting 
was perfect in symmetry, particularity of expressive 
detail, cumulative power, and tragic effect. All indi- 
cation of passion had disappeared from his visage and 
person. He seemed the authentic personification of 
the Mosaic Law, the righteous minister of Justice; 
the ordained avenger. In the presence of that 
majestic Hebrew the observer became, for a moment, 



THE MERCHANT OF VENICE 193 

completely oblivious that Shylock is not only a 
villain but a trickster; that his nature, like his quest, 
is abhorrent; that the "bond" to which he appeals, 
and by virtue of which he so ostentatiously craves 
"the law," was obtained by the hypocritical pretence 
of friendship and magnanimity; and that he is now 
proceeding in his actual character, that of a dis- 
sembling scoundrel, to do a murder, under the com- 
pulsoiy sanction of a Court of Justice. The illusion, 
however, was only momentary. Every evil passion 
poisons the mind that harbors it, till, if the inevitable 
degradation be not stayed, the character is vitiated, 
the body is ravaged, the soul is polluted. That 
truth was legibly written in the countenance of 
Irving's Shylock, and as the Jew stood there, in the 
Courtroom, no thoughtful observer could fail to 
read it. There was a horrible yellow pallor of the 
skin. The lines in the face had been deepened. The 
cheeks were hollow. There was a faint glow of 
hectic color around the sunken, burning eyes. The 
body was emaciated. On entering the Court Shylock 
advanced a little way, paused, and slowly gazed 
around until his eyes found Antonio, upon whom 
his look then settled, with evident gloating satisfac- 
tion, — a cruel, deadly look of sanguinary hatred, — 
and then he stepped a little forward and gravely 
bowed toward the Duke's throne. The address of 



194 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

that magistrate was heard bj'^ him with patient but 
wholly umnoved attention, and his reply was spoken 
with dignity and decisive force. The words, "What 
judgment shall I dread, doing no wrong?" were so 
spoken that they seemed those of honesty, and 
almost carried conviction of right intent. The con- 
tempt with which Gratiano's appeal was answered 
was of withering indifference. That voluble inter- 
cessor's denunciation was totally disregarded, except 
that, after it had ended, Shylock, with the point of 
his naked knife, touched the bond, which had been 
thrust into his girdle in the form of a roll, and made 
his curt answer in a cold, level, sinister tone, expressive 
of a scorn so profound as to be devoid of all feeling. 
In the peculiar emphasis that he laid on the word 
"law" there was a latent sarcastic mockery, as if, in 
his thought, he were deriding the folly of a law 
that could be made to serve such a purpose as the 
murder which he intended to commit. There was 
bland simplicity in his question, "On what 'compul- 
sion' must I?" and he listened with weariness and 
growing impatience to the speech about "The quality 
of mercy," feeling it to be irrelevant, futile, and 
tedious: his answer to it was abrupt and decisive. 
When Portia, in pitiful entreaty, said, "Bid me 
tear the bond," he laid his left hand heavily on 
both of her hands, to stay the action, and answered. 



THE MERCHANT OF VENICE 195 

without even a tremor, "When it is paid, according 
to the tenor." At "So says the bond — doth it not, 
noble judge?" he laid the point of his knife on the 
words in that document, held open by Portia, and 
when she inquired, "Are there balance' here, to weigh 
the flesh?" he caused an hysterical laugh, by the 
grisly promptitude with wliich he brought forth the 
"balance" from his bosom, — an action which seemed 
to imply that he had carried the implement there, to 
comfort him by its touch, with assurance of his cer- 
tain revenge. The relentless statement "'Tis not in 
the bond" was horrible in its icy implacable resolve, 
and he uttered with infernal exultation the summons 
to the Merchant, "A sentence! — Come! prepare!" 
In the subsequent resolute, persistent effort to 
extricate himself with at least financial profit from 
the ruins of his defeated scheme of murder the stal- 
wart force of the Jew's character was splendidly main- 
tained, and at the final catastrophe, the collapse, 
both physical and mental, was denoted with consum- 
mate skill. In making his exit from the Court Shy- 
loch moved slowly and with difficult}'', as if he had 
been stricken by fatal weakness and were opposing 
it by inveterate will. At the door he nearly fell, 
but at once recovered himself, and with a long, heavy 
sigh he disappeared. The spectacle was intensely 
pathetic, awakening that pity which naturally attends 



196 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

upon despoiled greatness of character and broken, 
ruined power, whether that character and that power 
be malignant or benign. 

Irving's dress, for Shylock, comprised a brown 
gabardine, girdled by a parti-colored shawl, a black, 
flat-topped cap with a yellow band across it, and 
square-toed shoes, of soft leather. He dressed the 
head with gray hair, long behind, the crown of the 
skull being bald. One lock of hair, being brushed for- 
ward, appeared on the brow, projecting from beneath 
the hat. He carried a black crutch-stick. In the Sec- 
ond Act he slightly changed the costume, — as already 
noted. In the Tliird Act he wore a long robe, but 
neither hat nor gabardine. In the Trial Scene, 
his dress was scrupulously correct, neat, and formal, 
Ills hair carefully smoothed and arranged, his aspect 
that of a priest going to the altar, to offer sacrifice: 
a more composed aspect could not be imagined, — the 
aspect of a lethal monster, sure of his prey, because 
bulwarked behind the pretence of religion and law, — 
and notliing at once as imposing and terrible had 
before been shown on our stage by any actor 
of Shylock, When Ii'ving first presented "The 
Merchant of Venice," in London, it had a run 
of two hundred and fifty consecutive performances, 
a record never equalled with any play of Shake- 
speare's. He restored the Fifth Act, which, after 



THE MERCHANT OF VENICE 197 

the time of Edmund Kean, had frequently been 
omitted. 

RICHARD MANSFIELD. 

Richard Mansfield assumed the character of Shy- 
lock for the first time on October 23, 1893, at HeiT- 
mann's Theatre, New York, and retained it in his 
repertory till the last. His ideal of it was not abso- 
lutely definite, but in the main it was correct. At 
first he endeavored to infuse into the performance a 
strain of sensibility, — judicious, perhaps, from one 
point of view, but unwarranted. His purpose then 
was to emphasize every redeeming human character- 
istic that ingenious reasoning can attribute to Shake- 
speare's Jew, and thus to win, particularly from a 
Hebrew audience, active sympathj'^ with a despised, 
persecuted, injured man, pursuing a justifiable course 
to avenge the wrongs which had been heaped, not only 
on himself, but on his tribe. Later he partly elimi- 
nated sensibility and laid the stress chiefly on evil 
power, but he never reached a decisive attitude toward 
it. At the time of his first appearance as STiylock, 
he had, as he assured me, never seen a performance 
of the part, and he declared that he had approached 
the subject "with a white mind." He also said that 
the play of "The Merchant of Venice" appeared to 
him to be "a fairy tale," — an opinion which, con- 



198 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

sidering certain inconsistencies and fanciful elements 
in its plot, is not, perhaps, entirely indefensible. 
His dressing as well as his acting of Shyloch under- 
went various changes, from year to year. Some 
of the stage business that he used at first, — 
as when he, literally, spat upon the stage, after 
saying, to Antonio, "Your worship was the last 
man in our mouths," — was subsequently discarded. 
His original dress, which consisted of such profuse 
drapery that his rather short figure seemed nearly as 
broad as it was long, was, in time, much improved by 
closer adjustment of the robe to the person, but he 
could not be induced to reject a queer cap, having flaps 
upon it, resembling the wings of a bat. The heavy 
long gray beard, diversified by a tuft of black hair 
beneath the lower lip, with which, at first, he obscured 
Shylock's face, was dismissed, and first a long, iron- 
gray beard, without moustache, and then a thin, short 
beard, with moustache, both of the latter nearly white, 
— were substituted for it, allowing facial expression 
to become visible. A ballet of "fairies," with which 
he had caused the Fifth Act to be opened, was soon 
east aside. In his final arrangement of the comedy 
Mansfield cut, altered, transposed, and condensed the 
text, till the original form of the piece was greatly 
marred. One of the Casket Scenes and the Garden 
Scene were retained. The supreme moments in Mans- 




RICHARD MANSFIELD AS SHYLOCK 

FROM A PAINTING BY EDGAU CAMERON 



THE MERCHANT OF VENICE 199 

field's impersonation of Shylock were those that 
include the delivery of the Jew's speech on usury, the 
sudden change from malignant volubility to simu- 
lated geniality of humor, at "Why, look you, how 
you storm!" and the delirium of the Street Scene, a 
passage in which he wrought a tremendous effect by 
means of his frenzied action and his exceptionally 
copious and resonant voice. In the delivery of the 
text he used the expedient of cadence, producing the 
effect of dialect, — therein subscribing to a practice 
long prevalent in the Continental Theatre of Europe, 
but first employed on the English Stage, I believe, 
by the elder Booth. At the close of the Trial Scene 
he made Shylock place the point of his curved knife, 
inside his dress, at the throat, intimating the purpose 
or act of suicide, and he spoke the words, "I am not 
well," in a weak, thin voice, as though to signify 
that the Jexo was bleeding to death, from a stoically 
self-inflicted wound, — a piece of business not merely 
unwarranted but preposterous. It is remembered that 
an unfortunate, partially demented man, James Owen 
O'Connor, — who undertook to be an actor, and 
eventually died in a mad-house, — appearing at the 
Star Theatre, New York, April, 1888, when present- 
ing himself as Shylock, caused the Jew to commit 
suicide in the Court, at the climax of his discom- 
fiture. As a whole Mansfield's portrayal of this part, 



200 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

while superb at certain points, remains in memory, — 
like Aladdin's tower, — ^unfinished. 



LATER PERFORMANCES. 

Since the time of Macklin, the character of Shylock 
has been, for the most part, left to actors distinctively 
serious, but, of late years, several comedians have 
undertaken to play it, — among others, Herbert Beer- 
bohm-Tree and Arthur Bourchier, in England, and 
Sidney Herbert, Nathaniel Cheever Goodwin, and 
Edward Hugh Sothern, in America. The perform- 
ances of the part given by Mr. Tree and Mr. 
Bourchier have not (1911) been seen on the Ameri- 
can Stage. Mr. Herbert's performance was given 
at Daly's Theatre, New York, on November 19, 1898, 
when the late Augustin Daly revived "The Merchant 
of Venice," with the lovely Ada Rehan as Portia. 

AUGUSTIN DALY'S REVIVAL.— SIDNEY HERBERT. 

Daly's first venture with this comedy was made 
at the New Fifth Avenue Theatre, New York, on 
January 11, 1875, when he presented a version, in 
four acts and four scenes^ such as had been per- 
formed at the Prince of Wales Theatre, London. 
E. L. Davenport acted Shylock and Carlotta Leclercq 



THE MERCHANT OF VENICE 201 

acted Portia. Daly's revival in 1898, — ^the last pro- 
duction of a Shakespearean play that he ever made, — 
was his consummate contribution to stage endeavor 
with this comedy. It was at that time, and at other 
times, alleged by censors of Daly's management (and, 
being a man of dictatorial character, indomitable will, 
peremptory manners, and extraordinary achievement, 
he had many enemies), — that his revivals of Shake- 
speare were "irreverent" and "over-elaborate." That 
charge was both false and contemptible, — the mean 
detraction, bred of envy and spiteful animosity, which 
must ever asperse merit. It gained, however, a shadow 
of justification in his final presentment of "The Mer- 
chant of Venice," in which, conscious of the prevalent 
acceptance of Irving's artistically matchless setting 
and interpretation of that play, Daly made prodigious 
endeavor to overwhelm comparison, — setting the piece 
in scenery of extraordinary magnificence, and dress- 
ing it with a splendor of costly apparel unprecedented 
in its stage history. The luxury of environment 
was carried beyond the limit of necessity, the comedy 
being decorated to excess. The consonance that 
should exist between raiment and character was not 
scrupulously considered, though historical accuracy was 
earnestly sought. The occasional attempts at verisi- 
militude in every-day life, — street scenes, frolics, riots, 
and the like accessories, — sometimes ended in common- 



202 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

place prosiness of detail. The presence of a throng 
of vocal spectators during Lorenzo's assignation 
scene with Jessica and their elopement was both 
incredible and ludicrous. On the other hand, the 
acting, throughout the performance, was noble in 
purpose and often splendid in fulfilment, the setting 
comprised many elements of beauty, the humorous 
points of the play were made specially effective, and 
the atmosphere of romance that should accompany its 
presentation was, in general, admirably preserved. 
The public benefit which accrues from an earnest, 
adequate presentment and interpretation of any one 
of Shakespeare's great plays could not be over- 
estimated. Daly richly deserved, on that occasion, 
public gratitude and a generous recognition of his 
superb accomplishment, but, although the comedy was 
acted fifty-two consecutive times, he did not receive 
his merited reward. A competent performance of 
"The Merchant of Venice" is a public service, of 
exceptional and specific importance. In no other 
play, except in that marvel of felicitous diction, 
"King Richard II.," has Shakespeare written in a 
vein of such exquisite poetry and splendid eloquence 
as are found in certain passages of this comedy, — 
such, for example, as Shyloch's rebuke to Antomo; 
Bassanio's apostrophe to Portia's portrait, Portias 
speech when plighting her troth, and Lorenzo's psean 



THE MERCHANT OF VENICE 203 

to the stars in the midnight sky. "The Winter's 
Tale" excels "The Merchant" in imagination; "As 
You Like It" is richer in fancy, pensive philosophy, 
quaintness, and sprightly mirth; "Twelfth Night" 
contains more humor and more wealth of diversified 
character; "Much Ado About Nothing" is more bril- 
liant and crisp; but neither of those comedies is the 
equal of "The Merchant of Venice" in human interest 
of plot, passionate intensity of feeling, absorbing 
dramatic action and suspense, or the perfect harmony 
of concurrent and contrasted tragical and comical 
ingredients, symmetrically united and made propul- 
sive to a perfect artistic climax and fulfilment. 

Daly invariably assumed the function of the 
instructor as well as that of the manager, — often with 
advantageous results, equalty to actors and auditors, — 
and the observer of performances given on his stage 
was, therefore, necessarily often in doubt as to whose 
ideal was disclosed. The anxiety of that manager as 
to his production of "The Merchant of Venice" was 
extreme. The play was in rehearsal, intermittently, 
for more than one year, — a fact unprecedented in 
his management. He was perplexed to find an actor 
for Shylock, — the election at one time inclining 
toward Tyrone Power, at another toward George 
Clarke, since deceased, and finally lighting upon 
Sidney Herbert. Mr. Herbert's ideal, — or rather the 



204 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

ideal that he presented, — was, at first, blurred by 
nervous trepidation, but his performance, after a time, 
became definite, coherent, and consistent, evincing 
thought, feeling, and force. Viewed as the first 
attempt of a comedian in a character that contains 
elements of tragedy, it certainly was the best per- 
formance, of its class, seen on our stage for many 
years. It again, in some measure, presented Shyloch 
as the austere, majestic avenger of the wrongs of 
Israel, but it employed a method of feverish flurry 
which is not warranted by the text and which was 
not justified by its practical result. "Never move" 
was the precept of Mrs. Siddons, in acting the 
Sleep Walking Scene of Lady Macbeth. "Move 
continually" appeared to be Mr. Herbert's precept, 
in acting Shyloch, although he gradually abated his 
activity. The Jew was not shown as self-centred 
and authoritative, but generally as in a state of 
splenetic bustle, — a scorpion in venom, but a scorpion 
also in celerity. During the Bond Scene with Bassanio 
and Antonio Mr. Herbert chiefly impressed his audi- 
ence by his superb make-up, which would have been 
a fit subject for a painting, his deft expression of 
veiled craft, his suppressed animosity, and his fluent 
delivery of the sarcastic speeches. In the Second Act 
he copied much of the business of Henry Irving. 
Not till the Street Scene did he become approximately 



THE MERCHANT OF VENICE 205 

free, though even there he seemed inexplicably desir- 
ous to keep himself down and to substitute a squall 
for a tempest. His achievement in that trjang 
situation would have had more potency of effect 
but for the needless and disturbing presence of a 
rabble of children, racing at the Jew's heels and 
deriding him, — an incident mentioned in the text but 
not shown, and neither essential nor desirable to be 
shown. He revealed considerable and unexpected 
resources of power, and notwithstanding a partially 
defective method, as of an actor mistakenly curbing 
his natural spirit and his freedom of expression, he 
gained a substantial success, by sincerity and intense 
feeling. No comedian of Mr. Herbert's order since 
the time of Thomas King, — as far as stage records 
testify, — has endured such a test. In the Trial Scene 
he was comparatively unimpressive, partly by reason 
of the incomplete method of his expression, partly 
because the premature disruption of the Court marred 
his climax, but more because of his weak, causeless 
prostration of himself upon the floor. The Jew is, 
indeed, broken at the last, but even at the last he 
exerts his will, and when he departs from the Court 
in which he has been so disastrously defeated and 
despoiled he will go away to sign that "deed of gift" 
and to die, — ^if die he must, — alone. 



206 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

NATHANIEL CHEEVER GOODWIN. 

Mr. Goodwin assumed the Jew for the first time 
in New York, on May 25, 1901, at the Knicker- 
bocker Theatre, in a presentment of the comedy 
which was made with much of the accoutrement 
that had been devised and employed by Daly. 
In eccentric comedy Mr. Goodwin has used good 
abilities with good effect, but his personality is not 
commanding and he is destitute of tragic power. 
The actor who would impress an audience as Shylock 
must be, in himself, — whatever be his ideal or his 
method, — authoritative and formidable. No per- 
former of flimsy character, slender fibre, finical 
make-up, and frivolous manner can create and sus- 
tain an illusion in that or in any kindred part. 
Among the anecdotes of Napoleon there is one which 
relates that a person who had hidden himself in a 
picture gallery for the purpose of shooting that great 
soldier was so completely overwhelmed with terror 
when the Emperor fixed his gaze upon him that he 
became temporarily paralyzed. Certain parts in the 
drama require, in the actor, stalwart individuality, 
fiery intellect, massive physical force, and great inher- 
ent facilitj'- of tragic expression. Shylock is one of 
those parts. INIr. Goodwin did not rise to that height, 
because he could not. His performance commingled 



THE MERCHANT OF VENICE 207 

craft, sarcasm, bitterness, splenetic humor, and malice, 
and that conglomerate was tempered with a singular 
old-gentlemanly complaisance, as though Shylock were 
apprehended as a possibly benign person. His 
level speaking was smooth, he skilfully indicated the 
duplicity of the Jew's bargain with the Merchant, 
and he caused a momentary ripple of dramatic effect 
by his delivery of Shylock's sarcastic address to 
Antmiio, on past indignities and present solicitations; 
and that effect he made, while showing himself to be 
neither correct nor fluent in the delivery of blank 
verse. In the Street Scene he was merely vehement, 
and in the Trial Scene he was colloquial and common- 
place, signifying nothing of Shylock's smouldering 
passion and concentrated hatred, and, at a supreme 
moment, showing his inconsequence by turning his 
back upon his victim. His voice was thin, his action 
tame, his identification with the character veiy slight, 
and his performance, as a whole, crude, spasmodic, 
and insignificant. In the ideal there was some mani- 
festation of humanitarian design. The beginner in 
study of Shylock is often misled by that mirage, but 
the mature student is forced to reject it. Shylock is 
strength, not weakness; hate, not love; cruelty, not 
mercy; incarnate wickedness, — having abundant rea- 
son for being the villain that he is; intent on a sanc- 
tioned murder, possessed of a sufficient cause, and 



208 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

confident in his purpose and himself. The comedian 
signified comprehension of him as only the well-mean- 
ing "man in the street." The garments worn by Mr. 
Goodwin dwarfed his somewhat squat figure, and by 
their ornamentation suggested that Shylock was, per- 
haps, a dealer in feathers. One new but ineffective 
piece of business was introduced, at the end of the 
Second Act, — another of the several futile efforts 
which have been made to better the instruction of 
Henry Irving. Shylock, on returning to his house, 
after the incident of Jessica's flight, was made to 
knock on the door, thrust it open, rush in, and, pres- 
ently, being unseen, to utter cries of distraction and 
rage, and then to emerge, distraught and dishevelled, 
bearing in his hand a letter, presumably left for him 
by his fugacious daughter, and as he ran across the 
stage to blurt the words which, subsequently, Solanio 
says "the dog Jew did utter in the streets": 

*' ' My daughter ! — O my ducats ! — O my daughter ! 
Fled with a Christian ! — O my Christian ducats ! 
Justice ! the law, my ducats, and my daughter ! ' " 

EDWARD HUGH SOTHERN. 

Mr. Sothern's performance of Shylock, — first shown 
in New York, February 16, 1907, at the Lyric The- 
atre, — was so incorrect and ineffective that it would 



THE MERCHANT OF VENICE 209 

require no mention but for the fact of that comedian's 
prominence in the contemporary American Theatre, — 
an honorable prominence, gained by ambitious, con- 
scientious, continuous labor, during many years, and 
by fortunate association with the best Shakespearean 
actress of the present period on the American Stage, 
Miss Julia Marlowe. Allusion occurs in the writings 
of Fanny Kemble, — who certainly was an authority 
on Acting, — to "those rare gifts of Nature without 
which Art is a dead body." Mr. Sothern's Shylock 
was "a dead body" indeed. Professional skill was 
indicated, together with some results of study, but the 
ideal was false and the expression of it was weak. 
Once more the wearied beholder discerned an abor- 
tive effort to blend greed with benevolence, the crafty 
usurer with the majestic Hebrew patriarch, the 
bloodthirsty schemer for revenge with the noble, 
loving father, the would-be murderer with the austere, 
righteous minister of Justice, and once more the 
union of those antagonistic components was seen to 
be impossible. The comedian concealed his face, — a 
face which, when fully disclosed, is not remarkably 
expressive, — by a superabundance of hair and paint, 
and in his speech he affected a thick, nasal "pudding" 
voice utterance. One instance of his stage business 
should alone suffice to prove how completely unworthy 
his performance of Shylock was of particular examina- 



220 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

tion and record: like his foreign predecessor, Ermete 
Novelli, he seated himself in the Street Scene! 



ROBERT BRUCE MANTELL. 

Mantell wisely followed the tradition established by 
Macready. His method was marked by simplicity. 
He did not endeavor to invest Shylock with religious 
austerity or place him in a sacramental attitude 
toward his Christian rival and insulter and the Chris- 
tian community of Venice. He presented a formi- 
dable, revengeful Jew, bitterly resentful of the injuries 
that he had personally suffered; his expression of 
mingled rage and anguish over his losses and of cruel 
and frantic exultation over the supposed losses of his 
hated enemy was expert and effective; and his main- 
tenance of a coldly diabolical purpose of murder, at 
the culmination of Shylock's treacherous contrivance 
against the life of Antonio, was massive with authority, 
determinate with inflexible purpose, and consistent 
and fine with the fluent procedure of studied art. 
There was not, in his acting of the Jew, an over- 
whelming whirlwind of passion. There was no pecu- 
liar ingenuity in his stage business. Mantell's cos- 
tume was Hebraic and appropriate: his excellence 
as an actor has been shown in parts that transcend 
Shylock in many ways. 



THE MERCHANT OF VENICE 211 

PORTIA. 

It is not possible to sympathize with a fortune- 
hunter who purposes to rectify his financial affairs by 
marrying a wealthy heiress, but it is easy to perceive 
that Bassanio is substantially a good fellow, and that 
he is truly in love with Portia, as Portia certainly is 
with him, and, so perceiving, it is pleasant to follow the 
course of their love-story to its happy close. Portia, 
unhappily, has often been performed by elderly or 
obviously mature women, and made unduly old and 
even masculine. She is a young and lovely girl; she 
lives in the season when love is essential and delicious; 
and when she says, to her intimate companion Nerissa, 
"My little body is a-weary of this great world," she 
unconsciously indicates her desire for love — her weari- 
ness of a life that is incomplete. The words that 
Portia speaks immediately after Bassanio has made his 
fortunate choice of the leaden casket utter the very 
heart of love and reveal the whole soul of the woman. 

The Portias of the stage have been numerous. 
When Burbage acted Shylock, the part must have 
been misrepresented bj'- a male, according to the cus- 
tom of that period. Kitty Clive and Peg Woffington 
were among the first prominent actresses to appear as 
Portia, after Macklin had revived Shakespeare's com- 



212 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

edy. Kitty Clive, in the Trial Scene, when disguised 
as Balthasar, was accustomed to imitate the manner of 
one or another well-known lawyer of the day. Peg 
Woffington, who acted Portia for the first time, 
May 1, 1743, at Drury Lane, is said to have been 
excellent in the part, but there is no detailed descrip- 
tion of her performance. Mrs. Yates acted Portia 
in 1770. Mrs. Siddons, — advertised as "A Young 
Lady," and making her first London appear- 
ance, — played the part for the first time in 1775. 
Then, in the old records, follow the names of 
Miss Macklin (daughter of Charles), Miss Barsanti, 
Elizabeth Farren, Elizabeth Younge (afterward Mrs. 
Pope), Eliza Kemble, Anne de Camp, Miss Ryder, 
Mrs. Pope 2d, Miss Murray, Mrs. Glover, Miss 
Smith, Mrs. Ogilvie, Miss Jarman, Mrs. Morris, Mrs. 
Henry, and Mrs. Merry (Anne Brunton). Nearer to 
the present time come Ellen Tree, Helena Faucit, 
Fanny Kemble, Julia Bennett Barrow, Mrs. F. B. 
Conway (Sarah Crocker), Bella Pateman, Ellen 
Terry, Helena Modjeska, Ada Rehan, and Julia 
Marlowe. Mme. JModjeska gave a delicious imper- 
sonation of Portia, upon which memory delights to 
linger. She specially revealed, and exulted in, the 
tender, ardent, intrinsic womanhood of that golden 
girl of Italy, and I remember that the love-light in 
her eyes when Portia looked at Bassanio, while he was 



THE MERCHANT OF VENICE 213 

making choice among the caskets, was one of the most 
expressive, artistic, fascinating beauties of her beauti- 
ful performance, — a seemingly spontaneous but per- 
fectly ordered acliievement in acting, which irradiated 
with the light of genius the whole fine love-story of 
Shakespeare's exquisite comedy, 

"Where every something being blent together 
Turns to a wild of nothing save of joy." 



ADA RERAN. 

Ada Rehan, as Portia, gave a performance com- 
bining innate loveliness of spirit with a fine aristocracy 
of demeanor. It happens that among all Shake- 
speare's heroines Portia, in the affection of that 
actress, has ever been the favorite. She merged her- 
self in the character; she was, in person, the dazzling 
white and golden beauty whom the poet has drawn; 
and in her acting she diffused the double charm of 
exquisite grace and deep feeling. The resemblance 
of Portia to Rosalind was discerned and indicated by 
her, but also she discerned and indicated the differ- 
ence between them. Portia combines exceptional 
mind with irresistible feminine allurement. She is 
more intellectual than Rosalind, and at the same time 
more passionate, but, like Rosalind, she is expert in 



214 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

kindly banter and playful, almost satirical, mockery: 
like Rosalind, she assumes man's apparel in order to 
accomplish a purpose, and, like Rosalind, she is self- 
contained, holding all her feelings in control. Unlike 
Rosalind, on the other hand, she is concerned in high, 
serious employment; she confronts a situation of 
tragic import, a situation fraught with enormous 
responsibility and agonizing suspense, and through- 
out a long and painful ordeal of conflicting emotions 
she is self-possessed, authoritative, and competent, 
manifesting a force of character such as Rosalind 
nowhere indicates, and such as would not be expected 
from any other of Shakespeare's comedy women, 
except the gentle but resolute Imogen. Ada Rehan, 
who had given the best representation of Rosalind 
that has been seen in our time, evinced, in her acting 
of Portia, an exact discrimination between the quali- 
ties of the two characters, emphasizing the intellectual 
element in the lady of Belmont, while freely and fully 
depicting the romantic, exalted, tremulous and various 
conditions and emotions appurtenant to love. Her 
Portia could be coldly dignified, but also she could 
be meek and gentle; she could be radiantly merry, 
and she could be fervently passionate. There was, 
in her temperament, a constitutional winning sweet- 
ness that not her most sparkling raillery could wholly 
conceal, and in the archness of her innocent mischief, — 





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THE MERCHANT OF VENICE 215 

as when she said, in the first colloquy with Nerissa, 
"I know it is a sin to be a mocker," — an exquisite 
charm. During the Casket Scenes she expressed a 
tremulous solicitude, peculiarly animative of sym- 
pathy, and her simulation of delight, combined with 
feminine delicacy and a maidenly restraint of ardor, 
in Portias self-surrender to the fortunate Bassanio, 
was supremely artistic. The reply to Nerissas 
reminiscent remark about the Venetian scholar and 
soldier who came in company with the Marquis of 
Montferrat, "Yes, yes, it was Bassmiio" being 
spoken with eager joy, which instantly became reserve, 
tinged with a delicate self-consciousness, when she 
added, "As I tlmik — so was he called," and turned to 
sweet gravity as she concluded, "I remember him 
well, and I remember liim worthy of thy praise." 
Happiness, however, is not (at least, it is not in 
great natures) the chief object of life. Portia is 
unselfish. She thinks of others, and cares for them. 
It was one of the felicities of Ada Rehan's impersona- 
tion that it showed a solid sense of duty to be the 
basis of Portias nature, and indicated her capability 
of being sufficient to herself, and, should adversity of 
fortune require the sacrifice, of living without love. 
The sacrifice, happily, is not required. Portia loves 
and she is beloved, and thus she was shown in this 
portrayal, — not less the inspiration of love than the 



216 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

ecstatic personification of it. Her demeanor in the 
Trial Scene, when Portia meets Shyloch, was com- 
pletely sm'charged with goodness. She met him on 
the ground of their common humanity, not beHeving 
possible such wickedness of purpose, such diabolical 
cruelty, as had been imputed to him. The reminder, 
"Shylock, there's thrice thy money offered thee," was 
spoken very gently, confidentially, in a way to appease 
the hardest of angry men. When the test failed her 
indignation made her implacable, and from that point 
to the end she was the rigorous administrator of the 
exact law, committing the cruel Jew to his ruinous 
doom without one moment of compunction. Ada 
Rehan's appearance, in Portias early scenes, was 
exceptionally beautiful. She wore pearl gray rai- 
ment, exceedingly becoming to her tall, lovely figure, 
and her hair was golden red. Later the dark robe of 
the Doctor of Laws was worn with perfect grace. 
It is especially memorable that this actress was the 
first and the only Portia of our time or, as far as 
stage history shows, of any time, who, when appear- 
ing before the "strict court of Venice," evinced and 
consistently maintained the anxiety not to say the 
solemnity inseparable from the situation and feelings 
of a person who is to adjudicate upon a question of 
wealth or ruin and life or death. 



THE MERCHANT OF VENICE 217 

ELLEN TERRY. 

The masculine objection to women who are dis- 
tinctively and severely intellectual expresses itself in 
the reproach that they are "mannish." No real man 
likes a "mannish" woman, any more than a real 
woman likes an effeminate man. In old times Portia 
was frequently played by heavy formidable females, 
unlovely, unromantic, hard, cold, practical, matter-of- 
fact, some of them provided with the stalwart legs 
of a piano and the booming voice of a trombone, and 
the part, as presented by those executants, naturally, 
diffused no charm. That sophisticated stage Portia 
was an image of artifice in the sprightly scenes, and 
of masculinity and declamation in the scene of the 
Trial. She cared more for herself than for her lover, 
and her function in the performance had been fully 
accomplished when once she had delivered the speech 
on Mercy. She was an incident to Shylock. In later 
times all that has been changed. It might almost 
be maintained that the true Portia has only in com- 
paratively recent years been discovered. In her latter 
presentations of the character on our stage Ellen 
Terry occasionally disfigured her performance of 
Portia by irrelevant and farcical interjections, but 
the most spontaneously feminine, completely symmet- 



218 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

rical and absolutely enchanting embodiment of that 
part was the one given by her, as she presented 
it in the earlier days of her professional associa- 
tion with Henry Irving. All the gayety and all 
the poetry of the part were elicited by her, and she was 
the first among players to show Portia as a lover, — a 
woman in love, a woman knowing herself to be loved, 
and radiant with happiness because of that knowledge. 
One piece of her stage-business, in particular, was an 
inspiration. After Bassanio had made his fortunate 
choice she crumbled some roses and allowed the leaves 
to flutter down into the leaden casket from which the 
happy lover had taken her picture, and then, bend- 
ing over it, seemed to consecrate it with a kiss. Ecstasy 
has not, within my observation of acting, been better 
expressed. The melody of Ellen Terry's speech, 
the clarity and sweetness of her articulation, the fine 
intelligence and unerring precision with which she 
gave to every word its exact shade of meaning, and the 
spontaneity and grace of her action had the inevitable 
result — and could have no other — of making her, — ^in 
Ben Jonson's felicitous phrase, — "Mistress of arts, and 
hearts, and everything." The lovely lines about Mercy 
came from her lips in a strain of golden melody, — for 
she could and did speak blank verse so as to make it 
seem the language of nature; and, a little to vary 
Wordsworth's fine couplet. 



THE MERCHANT OF VENICE 219 

The music in our hearts we bore 
Long after it was heard no more. 

When Ellen Terry thus embodied Portia the 
observer saw a woman of fine mind as well as of 
enchanting beauty; an imperial woman, yet one essen- 
tially feminine, possessing a deep heart and a pas- 
sionate temperament, and, at the same time, possessed 
of that arch, buoyant, glittering piquancy and play- 
fulness which are fluent from health, innocence, and 
kindness toward all the world. 

Portia is a "rich heiress." She has been reared in 
luxury. Her state is that of a princess. All things 
around her are sumptuous, and her mind, like her 
environment, is superb. Eveiy word of her speech is 
noble; every part of her conduct is free, generous, 
and fine. That ideal cannot be made actual by a com- 
monplace person. Ellen Terry had onlj^ to be her- 
self in order to make it real. In Portia's scenes with 
Nerissa, Morocco, and Arragon, during the first half 
of the play, Shakespeare's heroine conquers not by 
action and not by much speaking, but by condition; 
she is incarnate enchantment. Her period of active 
expression begins with the scene of Bassanio's choice 
of the leaden casket. But Portia is, from the first, a 
lover. Her eyes have told it to Bassanio, and her 
heart has told it to herself. That note was sounded 



220 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

by Ellen Terry, in her assumption of Portia, with the 
first word that she uttered, and that was ever the great 
felicity of her embodiment. When love is at the heart 
every object upon which the gaze of the lover falls 
is hallowed; every experience of life is tremulous with 
the sweet excitement of that divine fever, — for true 
passion is ecstatic and it makes humanity, in its finer 
types, almost celestial. The consummate art of Ellen 
Terry was never better shown than in her impartment 
of the condition that accompanies a cardinal emotion. 
She invested Portia with all the requisite vivacity and 
with the pretty craft that veils her passionate longing 
beneath smiles, banter, and raillery, but also she made 
Portia romantic, tender, ardent, and keenly sensitive, 
— ^irradiating her being with sensibility and allure- 
ment. In her utterance of Portia's playful satire on 
her motley suitors there was no acerbity, but only 
archness, sparkling over grave and gentle preoccupa- 
tion. Her illuminative by-play, during the Casket 
Scenes, was governed by the instinct of perfect 
courtesy toward Morocco and Arragon, and it dis- 
closed, as no words could ever do, at the moment of 
Bassanio's choice, depth of heart and ample poten- 
tiality of imparting bliss. 

Portia's fertility of resource and expedition of move- 
ment with respect to Antonio's perilous condition in 
the scene of the Trial are winged with love, yet her 



THE MERCHANT OF VENICE 221 

impetuosity is speedily curbed by the refinement and 
the poise which are attributes of her noble nature. 
Few of the women of Shakespeare denote as broad 
a vision or such a wide capacity of thought as Portia 
does, and there again the acting of Ellen Terry satis- 
fied the Shakespearean standard. There was nothing 
puny in it; nothing narrow; nothing indicative of 
inadequacy and effort. An alluring presence, great 
mental fervor, and the absolute sincerity which befits 
an occasion of almost tragic suspense constituted her, 
in the Trial Scene, an image of righteous authority, 
and her delivery of Shakespeare's melodious verse, 
some of the sweetest of which is put into the mouth 
of this heroine, made it still more beautiful. Ellen 
Terry was the first to dress Portia, for the Trial 
Scene, in a beautiful, flowing scarlet robe, — incorrect, 
according to authority on the costume of a Paduan 
doctor of laws of the period of the play, but delight- 
fully effective. By Henry Irving's wise restoration 
of the long disused last act of the comedy Portia 
was shown in her triumphant happiness, when the 
wolfish Jew had been discomfited and her husband 
and his friends were assembled at Belmont. The 
glee of Ellen Terry, in that act, was the sunshine 
of a guileless, happy heart, and it made that lovely Gar- 
den Scene radiant. There is no reason to suppose 
that we shall ever a^ain see Portia so truly and entirely 



222 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

incarnated as she was by that great actress. If the 
acting of Ellen Terry in the character of Portia, when 
that actress was in her prime, was not perfect dra- 
matic art there is no such thing, — 

"And there is nothing left remarkable 
Beneath the visiting moon." 

ELLEN TERRY AS A LECTURER. 

Twenty-seven years, almost to the day, after her 
first dramatic appearance in New York, — October 
30, 1883, at the Star Theatre, as Queen Henrietta 
Maria, in Wills's picturesque and pathetic play of 
"King Charles I.," — Ellen Terry made her first 
appearance in that capital as a Lecturer and, at the 
Hudson Theatre, November 3, 1910, delivered a dis- 
course, diversified by readings, on "Shakespeare's 
Heroines — Triumphant." Many things, in that inter- 
val, — during which she had given about 1,500 per- 
formances in America, — had changed and broken: 
there was but little change in her. Time, it was seen, 
had only touched with a pensive grace the affluent 
beauty which it had not the heart to spoil. Her figure 
was still imperial. Her movement still evinced the 
buoyant freedom of the curling wave. Her smile still 
flashed like a sudden sunbeam. Her rich voice was 




From a pitotvyraph bu Wiiulou! and Groce, Lonil 



ELLEN TERRY AS PORTIA 



THE MERCHANT OF VENICE 223 

still a strain of music. Her gestures stiH possessed the 
ease, breadth, and spontaneity which always made 
them absolutely appropriate and expressive. She 
still was Ellen Terry, the foremost inspirational 
actress of her time; a woman of authentic genius, 
whose dramatic art, — often exquisite, more often law- 
less and wild, — derived an unpremeditated, enchant- 
ing felicity from her opulence of womanhood, 
tenderness of heart, unerring intuition, and passionate 
ardor. Not in any period, — as far as can be learned 
from historic records, certainly not in our period, — 
has the stage presented such a striking example as 
was shown by Ellen Terry of the union of wild 
genius with practical sense in the conduct of pro- 
fessional life, and trained skill with vagrant, intuitive 
impulse in the art of dramatic expression. She had 
rivals in specific walks of the drama, but essentially, 
as a personality and as an actress, she stood alone. 
When she was on the stage in her rightful, natural 
environment she was an acknowledged Queen: the 
supreme, unapproachable Ophelia; the perfect Bea- 
trice; bewitching and pathetic beyond description as 
Goethe's Margaret; like a lily of loveliness as Tenny- 
son's Rosamund; exquisite in the simplicity and purity, 
and heartbreaking in the ardent passion and natural, 
womanlike grief, of Wills's Olivia; the veritable 
rough diamond of humor and goodness as Nance 



224 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

Oldfield. The honor roll of her fine artistic achieve- 
ments would be a very long one, and full of light. 
On the Lecture Platform she was not able to repro- 
duce those images of dramatic power and beauty which 
long ago she had revealed in the Theatre and left as a 
benediction in the public remembrance. The most 
that she did as a Lecturer was to impart an occasional 
suggestion of some of them, — as in a recital of Portias 
exposition of the quality of Mercy; but to remember 
her delivery of that and kindred speeches is to be 
reminded of the lovely lines by Ben Jonson, 

"The voice so sweet, the words so fair, 
As some soft chime had stroked the air, 
And, though the sound was parted thence. 
Still left an echo in the sense." 

To see Ellen Terry, in her great day, as an actress, 
was to see a vital creature of beauty, passion, tender- 
ness and eloquence, a being, in Cleopatra s fine phrase, 
all "fire and air" : but even to see her as a lecturer was 
a privilege, — because it is always a pleasure and a 
benefit to experience mental and spiritual intercourse 
with a woman of fine temperament and rare personal 
charm. Ellen Terry, indeed, was not a good lecturer: 
there is an art in lecturing as well as acting, and 
she had not learned it. Her method was experi- 
mental. She did not speak with conviction, but rather 



THE MERCHANT OF VENICE 225 

with the dubiety of a person who seemed either to be 
uttering the thoughts of another mind or uttering 
thoughts wliich had not been maturely and thoroughly 
considered. She overran her "points." She made no 
sufficient allowance for either laughter or applause. 
She dropped her voice at the end of sentences, so 
that some of her words became indistinct or inaudible. 
She lacked the decisive, dominant quality of authority, 
being at times uneasy, hurried, flurried, and, at such 
times, therefore, ineffective. Her views, furthermore 
(such of them as she made public), were often incor- 
rect, generally commonplace, and, in the matter of 
thought, superficial. Her hits, as a speaker, were 
mostly made by quick little flashes of piquant com- 
ment and sudden transitions of playful tone, — as when, 
remarking on the theoretical doubt of Shakespeare's 
entire authorship of "King Henry VIII.," she "just 
knows that Shakespeare did write it, at least Queen 
Katherinef and thus jauntily laughed the commen- 
tators out of court. 

The wiser course for her to have pursued as a 
Shakespearean entertainer would have been to read 
or recite Scenes from Shakespeare, as once she did, 
in London, in association with Henry Irving, when 
they gave an impressive and eminently effective read- 
ing of "Macbeth." The most illustrious of her female 
predecessors on the platform, Fanny Kemble and 



226 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

Charlotte Cushman, took that course and were bril- 
liantly successful in it. To act is one thing; to 
expound is another; and the clangor of controversy 
that has been sounding on among commentators for 
two hundred years might well be accepted as a warn- 
ing against unprepared adventure into the field of 
Shakespearean Commentary, where, indeed, the 
speaker must "speak by the card." Ellen Terry's; 
views, however incorrect or trivial, were widely 
received with unhesitant credence, simply and solely 
because they were expressed by a great actress who 
ought to be sure of her facts and was presumed to 
be so. They were not entitled to any such acceptance. 
Examination of all her remarks about the many char- 
acters in Shakespeare upon which, in her fleeting way, 
she was pleased to touch would tax a reader's patience. 
Brief reference to some of those concerning "The 
Merchant of Venice," while indicating the flimsy 
nature of her superficial speculations and enforcing 
the truth that, though she was important as an 
impersonator of Shakespeare's heroines, she was not 
important as an expositor of them, will also indicate 
some essential traits in the character of Portia, and 
thus find a legitimate and useful place in the stage 
history of the play. In her descant on "The Mer- 
chant" Miss Terry declared that, notwithstanding 
her "speech of submission" to her lover (which, by the 



THE MERCHANT OF VENICE 227 

way, is not "a speech of submission" at all), Portia 
remains very independent and immediately hits upon 
a plan for the rescue of Antonio, which, without advice 
or assistance, without asking leave or opinion, she 
puts into effect. That is an error. The scene of 
the betrothal of Bassanio and Portia is, of course, 
followed by their marriage. Bassanio, leaving his 
wife at the altar, then returns to Venice, provided with 
money to pay the bond. There is an indication of 
lapse of time between the departure of Bassanio from 
Belmont and the subsequent departure therefrom 
of Portia: "You have a noble and a true conceit of 
god-like amity; which appears most strongly in bear- 
ing thus the absence of your lord." Portia's course 
of conduct is clear. Solanio has stated, of Antonio, 
"It should appear that if he had the present money 
to discharge the Jew, he would not take it." Jessica 
has warned Bassanio, in Portia's presence, that her 
father "would rather have Antonio's flesh than twenty 
times the value of the sum that he did owe him," and 
that "it will go hard with poor Antonio," unless 
Shylock is overruled by "law, authority, and power." 
In her extremity Portia, who wishes to see her hus- 
band as well as to save his friend, and who has a 
nimble wit, applies for help to her cousin. Doctor 
Bellario, a learned lawyer. Her first application is 
inade by letter^ asking for instruction as to how to 



228 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

proceed for Antonio's relief, and also asking for 
assistance in masquerading as a lawyer in the Court 
of Venice. To her servant she says: 

" See thou render this 
Into my cousin's hand, Doctor Bellario : 
And, look, what notes and garments he doth give thee, 
Bring them, I pray thee, with unagin'd speed, 
Unto the tranect, to the common ferry 
Which trades to Venice." 

It is manifestly impossible that at this time Portia 
can have thought of, or planned, the quibble which 
defeats and ruins Shyloch, for the simple but con- 
clusive reason that, at this time, she has not seen 
Antomo's bond to the Jew and does not know the 
terms of it. Ellen Terry declared that this quibble 
"is not a man's idea," but "a woman's"; that it occurs to 
Portia and is employed by her as a sudden, desperate 
clutching at a last possible means of escape for 
Antonio, and that it is justifiable, if at all, only on 
the ground that "desperate diseases require desperate 
remedies"; that it is used for a good purpose; and that 
"people employ weapons against a mad dog for the 
use of which they would be condemned if the dog 
were only wild and unruly." That view of the sub- 
ject is preposterous. 

The quibble employed by Portia is, unmistakably, 
the technical quibble of a la\\yer and of a shrewd 



THE MERCHANT OF VENICE 229 

and tricky one. There is almost positive evidence, in 
the posture of circumstances as well as in the letter of 
Doctor Bellario to the Duke of Venice, that Portia 
has, in person, consulted her lawyer-cousin before 
appearing in court: "We turned o'er many books 
together." Even assuming that this is only Doctor 
Bellaiio's thoroughgoing method of imposing on the 
Court in commending his substitute, essential facts 
are evident. The Duke has submitted the case of 
Shylock V. Antonio, — in which he has taken excep- 
tional interest ("twenty merchants, the duke himself, 
and the magnificoes of greatest port, have all per- 
suaded with" the obdurate Jew), — to the consideration 
of counsel learned in the law, and, naturally, to the 
greatest authority known to him, in the hope of finding 
some method of escape for the Merchant. The Duke 
says: 

"Upon my power, I may dismiss this court 
Unless Bellario, a learned doctor, 
Whom / have sent for to determine this, 
Come here to-day." 

This, obviously, has nothing to do with the plans 
of Portia. It is incontestable that Bellario could not 
write to the Duke, as he does, of having received his 
letter and of having "acquainted" the young doctor 
of Rome "with the cause in controversy between the 
Jew and Antonio the Merchant," unless Bellario had 



230 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

himself been first made acquainted with it by the 
Duke: the young Doctor declares in court: "I am 
informed throu'ly of the cause," etc. 

The line and plan of Ant onions defence have been 
thorouglily worked out by Bellario: in the pleading 
of the case by Portia opportunity is given to the im- 
placable Hebrew to withdraw, with great material 
.advantage to himself: perhaps it was not quite cer- 
tain in advance that the Court would sustain the 
wretched quibble: perhaps there was some decent 
repugnance to employment of such chicanery, if it 
could be avoided. But — not only has the ruinous 
technical quibble been thought out; the method of 
overwhelming the Jew and of inflicting fearful pun- 
ishment upon him has been provided. The utterance 
of the speech beginning "Tarry a little" is no last, 
desperate effort to save a forfeited life; it is the delib- 
erate voice of "justice according to law" which speaks, 
and it speaks the doom of Shylock. The Jew may 
take his pound of flesh, but if, in doing so, he shed 
one drop of Christian blood his lands and goods are 
forfeit unto the State. That is no sudden effort of 
woman's wit, — no "blanket in the alarm of fear caught 
up," — to sliield Antonio. It is the letter of the Law. 
When Shylock, stunned and appalled, inquires: "Is 
that the laxi:?" the stern answer is immediate and 
conclusive: "Thyself shalt see the act"; and the loca- 



THE MERCHANT OF VENICE 231 

tion of that "Act" in the Criminal Statutes of Venice 
certainly could not have been known to Portia^ and 
it is equally certain that it would naturally be known 
to, or be found by, "the learned Bellario" when 
engaged, at the Dukes solicitation, in preparing 
Antonio's defence. Nor is that all: Portia has been 
equipped with additional legal knowledge, the sub- 
stance of which she states in Court, whereby, for hav- 
ing "indirectly, and directly, too" "contriv'd against 
the very life" of Antonio, Shyloch's estate, even in the 
event of his not attempting to cut the forfeiture, is 
not only forfeit, half to the State and half to the 
object of his "lodg'd hate," but his life is placed at 
"the mercy of the Duke only." 

The following instructive words were written by the 
great actress Fanny Kemble, one of the most intel- 
lectual women who have graced the stage: 

" There is no reason whatever to expect that fine actors shall 
be necessarily profound commentators on the parts that they 
sustain most successfully, but rather the contrary," the reason 
being that " the dramatic faculty lies in a power of apprehen- 
sion quicker than the disintegrating process of critical analysis, 
and when it is powerful and the organization fine, perception 
rather than reflection reaches the aim proposed." 

Ellen Terry as a lecturer on Shakespeare provided 
a conspicuous example of that truth. 



IV. 

OTHELLO. 

"It works! The venom doth corrupt his soul! 
And he, who was all goodness, will become 
The instrument of Hell, — most terrible 
Because most virtuous." 

— Old Play. 

Viewed exclusively as a dramatic fabric, that is to 
say, with reference to the element of action and that 
only, "Othello" is not onlj^ the best of Shakespeare's 
plays but the best play in the English language. The 
action of it begins with the first word that is spoken, 
steadily increases and broadens, culminates at a tre- 
mendous crisis, and terminates in a complete tragic 
fulfilment. The element of pantomime, — that element 
which is the basis of all drama, — is so abundant, per- 
vasive, and distinct in it that the movement could be 
carried on and made intelligible to an audience, almost 
without words. Among its many admirable attributes 
the one that first particularly impresses the reader or 
the spectator of it is simplicity and the dominant 
prevalence of that attribute points to the first requi- 
site in a representation of the play. 

The Shakespeare scholar is aware that the poet 

232 



OTHELLO 233 

derived the materials for his tragedy from a tale 
contained in the "Hecatommithi," by Giraldi Cinthio, 
Italian novelist, 1504-1573, the details of which are 
barbarous, and that, according to his custom, he greatly 
elevated a borrowed subject by his imaginative, poeti- 
cal treatment of it. By way of exemplifying the 
attribute of simplicity in this play and directing atten- 
tion to the supreme skill of the dramatist in employ- 
ing simple expedients and making them productive 
of thrilling situations and terrible effects, a brief epit- 
ome of the incidents of the story seems appropriate. 
The scene is Venice; the time 1570. The beautiful 
Desdemonaj a motherless girl, is fascinated by the 
manly Othello, a picturesque, eloquent soldier, and 
she encourages him to become her lover. Both of 
them abuse the confidence of the girl's father, 
Brahantio, and Desdemona elopes with Othello and 
is married to him. Brabantio is compelled to recognize 
the lawful union of the lovers, since it has already 
occurred, but subsequently he dies of a broken heart 
because of his daughter's conduct, — described by her 
as "dow^nright violence and scorn of fortune." Othello, 
commander-in-chief of a Venetian army, appoints 
Cassio to the position of his lieutenant, a position 
which had been, and continues to be, coveted by lago^ 
another officer, who is assigned to a subordinate place. 
Roderigo, a rich Venetian youth, has long been infat- 



234 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

uated with Desdemona, and desirous to win her. 
Cassio is smitten by the beauty of DesdemonUj but 
his regard for her is that of a chivah'ous admirer. lago^ 
who knows those persons and that posture of circum- 
stance, determines to displace and ruin Cassio^ whom, 
for no adequate specific reason, he hates, and to obtain 
for himself the position of Othello's lieutenant. Pur- 
suant to that determination he contrives to make Cassio 
drunk, to have him dismissed for inebriety and brawl- 
ing, to make him the object of Othello's deadly jeal- 
ousy and hatred, to supersede him in his military 
office, and to cause Othello to kill Desdemona, — the 
end of all his scheming being the vindication and 
reinstatement of Cassio, the murder, by lago, of his 
wife, Emilia, Othello's suicide, and his own frightful 
death, by torture. No story could be more simple, 
direct, fluent, and elementally tragic; but with what 
fine contrivance the poet has told it, with what 
ingenuity of invention, what vibrant vitality of con- 
tinuous action, what ample and superb drawing of 
character, what prodigious volume of feeling, what 
tumult of surging and conflicting passion, and what 
perfection of poetic style! Othello, — not Romeo, — 
is the supreme representative lover, unmatched as 
such in all Shakespeare and all fiction, and the play 
is the supreme dramatic exposition of all the tragedy 
that can be born of love. 



OTHELLO 235 

EARLY PERFORMERS. 

The date of the composition of "Othello" has not 
been determined and, apparently, it is indeterminable. 
The play was published in Quarto form in 1622 and 
it is included in the Folio of 1623. The first men- 
tioned presentment of it occurred in the autumn of 
1604, at the palace of Whitehall, London, in the 
presence of King James the First and his court, and 
the first representative of Othello was Richard Bur- 
bage. All that is known about his performance is 
that, according to an intimation in the Elegy on his 
death, — a composition, anonymous, alleged to have 
been written immediately subsequent to the sad event, 
— it was accounted supremely good. These are the 
words of the Elegy, relating to this subject: 

"He's gone, and with him what a world are dead, 
Which he reviv'd, to be revived so 
No more: — young Hamlet, old Hieronymo, 
King Lear, the cruel Moor, and more beside, 
That lived in him, have now forever died." 

Prior to the demise of Burbage Othello was rep- 
resented by John Underwood, an actor relative to 
whom the chronicles afford but sparse information. 
Davenant expressed a very high opinion of him. He 
had been a member of the company of "The Chil- 



236 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

dren of the Chapel," he participated in the first 
performance of Ben Jonson's "The Alchemist," 
1610, and he died in 1624. Othello had also been 

acted by Nathaniel Field, , 1641, another 

graduate from the company of "The Children 
of the Chapel," and by Eylaeward Swanston. The 
death of Burbage occurred in 1629, the fourth year 
of the reign of King Charles the First. It seems 
probable that Joseph Taylor succeeded to the parts 
which had been played by Burbage. There is authen- 
tic record that Joseph Taylor played Hamlet and 
lago. He was "Yeoman of the Revels" in 1639, and 
he died, aged eighty-two, in 1658, at Richmond, 
Surrey. 

Of the successors of Burbage in Othello, during the 
period of the generation which intervened between his 
death and the revival of the Theatre, at the Restora- 
tion, 1660, scarcely anything is known. Among the 
leading actors of the English Stage in that period, — 
actors who were contemporaneously esteemed for 
brilliancy of talent and achievement, — were not only 
Burbage's associates John Lowin and Joseph Taylor, 
but also Michael Mohun, Charles Hart (grandnephew 

of Shakespeare), John Lacy, Clun, and Henry 

Harris. Most of those players had deteriorated or 
passed away by the time Betterton reached middle 



OTHELLO 237 

age, and long before he reached middle age that 
extraordinary actor had taken precedence of his com- 
petitors and appropriated to himself most of the 
greater dramatic parts. The date of his first assump- 
tion of Othello is not recorded, but probably he added 
that part to his repertory after the union, in 1682, 
of the two prominent dramatic companies then exist- 
ent in London, Killigrew's and Davenant's, the 
former known as "The King's," and the latter, because 
patronized by the Duke of York, the King's brother, 
as "The Duke's." 

On February 6, 1669, sometime before the union 
of those two companies, "Othello" was performed by 

Killigrew's actors, with a cast wliich contained • 

Burt, as Othello, Michael Mohun, as I ago, and Mar- 
garet Hughes, as Desdemona. No account of Burt's 
acting has been found. He was eclipsed, in Othello, 
by Charles Hart. On January 28, 1707, the tragedy 
was performed at the Haymarket Theatre, with 
Betterton as Othello, and from that time onward 
the chronicle of its fortunes is reasonably continuous 
and clear. On the occasion W'hen Betterton acted 
at the Haymarket as Othello the cast included the 
shining names of Barton Booth, as Cassio, John 
Verbruggen, as I ago, and Anne Oldfield (1683- 
1730), — an exceptionally delicious and bewitching 



238 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

woman, — as Desdemona. Betterton's impersonation 
of Othello, according to Sir Richard Steele's incom- 
plete yet instructive description of it, in "The Tatler," 
must have been exceedingly noble, powerful, and 
pathetic. One citation from that account tells much: 

"The wonderful agony which he appeared in when he ex- 
amined the circumstance of the handkerchief, the mixture of 
love that intruded upon his mind, upon the innocent answers 
Desdemona makes, betrayed in his gestures such a variety and 
vicissitude of passion as would admonish a man to be afraid 
of his own heart, and perfectly convince him that it is to stab 
it to admit that worst of daggers, jealousy." 

A supreme merit of Betterton's acting is indicated 
in one significant sentence by Cibber: "He could 
vary his spirit to the different characters he acted." 
He made Othello black, and, probably, he wore a 
court dress of his period. 



CARELESS INVESTIENT. 

The unprovided or wrongly provided condition of 
the British Theatre in the matter of scenery, and 
the fatuous negligence as to suitability of costume 
which generally prevailed in it prior to John Philip 
Kemble's assumption of the management of Drury 
Lane Theatre, which occurred in 1788-89, can be 
inferred from these expressive sentences concerning 



OTHELLO 239 

that subject, written by Kemble's biographer, James 
Boaden, in 1825: 

*'The memory of no very aged person may present, if closely 
urged, some not very brilliant impressions of the miserable pairs 
of flats that used to clap together on even the stage trod by 
Mr. Garrick ; architecture without selection or propriety ; a 
hall, a castle, or a chamber, or a cut-wood of which the ver- 
dure seemed to have been washed away. Unquestionably all 
the truth, all the uniformity, all the splendor, and the retinue 
of the stage came in with Mr. Kemble." 

The same historian records that Thomas King, on 
relinquishing the management of Drury Lane, to 
which Kemble succeeded, significantly remarked 
that while he had been manager of the theatre he 
"had not even the liberty to command the cleaning of 
a coat, or adding, by way of decoration, a yard 
of copper lace, both of which, it must be allowed, 
were often much wanted." As illustrative of the 
habitual indifference to fitness of dress which had 
long prevailed before Kemble's time mention should 
be made that, in 1787, when James Fennell, making 
his first appearance on the stage, acted at the Theatre 
Royal, Edinburgh, as Othello, the garb that he wore, 
furnished by the manager, John Jackson (author 
of "The History of the Scottish Stage," 1793), con- 
sisted of a coat, waistcoat, and trousers of white cloth, 
— the coat and waistcoat being profusely decorated 



240 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

with silver lace, — a black "ramillies," that is, a wig, 
made of black hair, with a tail attached to it, about 
a yard long, white silk stockings, and dancing pumps. 



BARTON BOOTH AND QUIN. 

After Betterton's time the first decisively impor- 
tant performer of Othello was Barton Booth, who 
must have been exceptionally well qualified to play 
that part, his natural demeanor being characterized 
by great dignity, his temperament being emotional, — 
beneath an habitually calm exterior, — and his counte- 
nance, in which the muscles were prominent and flex- 
ible, being well adapted to express the incessant and 
continually changing play of varied feeling, — a facility 
much required in the terrible situations contrived in 
the tremendous Third Act of the tragedy. Colley Gib- 
ber, a good judge, notwithstanding his demonstrable 
bias in some cases, declares that Othello was Booth's 
masterpiece; and Benjamin Victor, a careful the- 
atrical recorder, bears significant testimony to the 
effect of his acting, in these words: "In all the dis- 
tressful passages of heart-breaking anguish and jeal- 
ousy I have frequently seen all the men, susceptible to 
the tender passion, in tears." Booth, unquestionably 
a man of genius, was unequal in his acting, some- 
times superb, sometimes languid, careless, and indif- 



OTHELLO 241 

ferent. He vitalized the formal rhetoric of Addison's 
Cato and he gave a profoundly pathetic impersona- 
tion of King Lear. He was an athletic man, five 
feet eight inches in height, of a comely aspect, and 
possessed of a voice of wide compass and peculiar 
sweetness. Aaron Hill wrote of him, as an actor, 
that "the blind might have seen him in his voice and 
the deaf have heard him in his visage." Accessible 
though incomplete analysis of his presentment of 
Othello indicates that his personality was solid, his 
demeanor grave, his elocution notable for variety 
and significant pauses, and his transitions of feeling 
effected with consummate skill. Like Betterton he 
made Othello black. Booth was utterly indifferent 
to suitability of costume, on the stage. As the Roman 
Cato, for example, he wore a long gown, figured all 
over with flowers, and a huge powdered wig. As 
Othello he probably followed the example of Better- 
ton, with whom he had acted and whom he 
venerated, and wore a court-dress of his time 
(1681-1733). There is no known description of the 
costumes used by either of those actors, in that 
part. 

James Quin (1698-1766), the most renowned Fal- 
staff of his time, who followed Booth as Othello 
(1738), gave a performance of the part which was 
recognized by contemporaneous critics as dignified. 



242 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

correct, and respectable. Quin was a man of 
strong intellect and formidable character. It is 
not credible that he actually failed in Othello, 
but it is not likely, judging from what is known 
of his acting in other parts in which he was dis- 
tinguished, — notably the Ghost of King Hamlet, 
Marcus Brutus, Cato, Angelo, Melantius, Bejazet, 
Pinchwife, Sir John Brute, and King Henry the 
Eighth, — that he achieved any considerable success 
in it. He made up his face and hands black, for 
Othello, and wore an English military uniform, a 
large, powdered wig, and white gloves. When 
he removed the gloves the sudden disclosure of 
his sable hands seemed to accentuate the fact 
that he was showing Othello as a Negro. One 
authority declares that Quin's Othello was positively 
"bad," and condemns by use of the same epithet his 
King Lear, Macbeth, and King Richard the Third. 
On the occasion when Quin first appeared as Othello, 
John Mills exerted his conventional, experienced pro- 
fessional talent in the part of lago, and Mrs. Gibber, 
— not a beauty, but undoubtedly a woman of dra- 
matic genius, all feeling and fire, with mind to lead 
and taste to guide, — was the representative of Des- 
demona, and it is doubtful if the part ever had a bet- 
ter one. 



OTHELLO 243 

COLLEY GIBBER— Z4(?0. 

Colley Gibber, to whom the student of theatrical 
history is indebted for valuable information concern- 
ing some of his contemporaries on the stage and also 
for information, apparently not always reliable, as 
to a few of their immediate predecessors, did not 
attempt to play Othello, but he played lago, and he 
gave a poor performance of that exacting part. 
Davies says that he acted lago in a drawling, hypo- 
critical style, and made him such a transparent villain 
that Othello, "who is not drawn a fool, must have 
seen through his thin disguises." He was tolerated, 
not esteemed, in tragedy, to which, indeed, he was 
not fitted, either by capability of emotion, sensibility 
of temperament, dignity of person, or quality of voice. 
He could, and did, act old men and fops, and he 
acted them well. He rose not beyond that level. 
Gibber was not, in talent, the utterly contemptible 
person that Pope represents him to have been, but 
there is evidence that he was a man of shallow nature, 
flimsy character, superficial attainments, and dissolute 
life. Success in the impersonation of the complex, 
potent, massive characters drawn by Shakespeare 
is not possible to persons of frivolous constituence. 
Simulation can to some extent beguile, but person- 



244 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

ality shows itself, and it is decisive in its impartment 
of final impression. 

lago is incarnate evil but, like every other character 
in the tragedy, he should be viewed as a poetic type, 
not as a prosy trickster, — such as, evidently. Gibber 
made him. He is part of a system of dramatic 
machinery that operates within the realm of imagina- 
tion. He was not drawn for the commonplace pur- 
pose of showing merely unmitigated depravity. The 
tragedy of "Othello" tells an awful and agonizing 
story, of which that ruthless, terrible, but highly intel- 
lectual villain is the mainspring of action. The 
tragedy is made unfit for representation when it is 
acted in a manner that reduces it to the level of 
common life. It has been so acted by many players, 
domestic as well as foreign, whose names it is not 
essential to mention. Indeed, a complete list of the 
persons who are known to have appeared as Othello 
and as lago would be almost as prolix and tiresome 
as the Catalogue of the Ships in the "Iliad." 

WILKS AND GARRICK. 

The representation of Othello given by Robert 
Wilks, who was more a comedian than a tragedian, 
seems to have been creditable but not remarkable. 
Steele intimates that he succeeded in parts of Othello, 



OTHELLO 245 

only failing when he tried to imitate Betterton. He 
made Othello black, and he dressed him in a British 
military uniform and wore a large wig. 

The brilliant Garrick, so sympathetic as Hamlet, 
so imaginative and weird as Macbeth, and so piteous, 
affecting, and terrible as King Lear, made no signifi- 
cant impression as Othello. He acted the part for the 
first time on May 7, 1745, at Drury Lane. Macklin 
played lago, and Mrs. Gibber played Desdemona, 
Quin, who did not approve of Garrick's innovating 
style, attended one of the representations and openly 
sneered at it, as also did the clever, piquant, satirical, 
coarse Kitty Clive, an actress of fine ability, a woman 
of sturdy common sense and one who was accustomed 
to speak her mind freely on all occasions. To those 
observers Garrick's Othello seemed to be a "little nig- 
ger boy." The judgment of Victor, on the con- 
trary, was favorable to Garrick's embodiment, and 
particularly he extolled that actor's treatment of the 
piteous scene of Othello's epileptic trance, — a scene 
which, in almost all modern presentments of the 
tragedy, on the English-speaking Stage, has been 
omitted. Henry Irving, in his production of 
"Othello," February 14, 1876, at the London Lyceum 
Theatre, restored it. Garrick's costume as Othello 
is not particularly described. One of his biographers, 
Arthur Murphy, says that "he chose to appear in a 



246 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

Venetian dress," — in which case he chose aright. 
Another recorder, of later date, affirms that he wore 
Moorish gaiTaents. It was not his habit to consider 
correctness of apparel. His venture in Othello seems 
to have been as decisive a failure as Cooke's venture 
in Hamlet^ and he discarded the part, after giving 
only three performances of it. Horace Walpole 
wrote that Garrick's Othello was "ridiculous." 



BARRY AND HENDERSON. 

Spranger Barry, with his fine, manly person, hand- 
some face, melodious voice, and sympathetic tempera- 
ment, made the part of Othello so much liis own that, 
in the prime of his popularity, 1747 to 1758, no com- 
petitor for the public favor undertook to vie with 
him in it. Colley Gibber esteemed him superior, as 
Othello^ to either Betterton or Booth. He dressed the 
part in a suit of scarlet cloth, decorated with gold lace, 
and wore a small cocked hat, knee-breeches, and silk 
stockings, the better to display his shapely legs, of 
which he was vain, — as men usually are who possess 
those accidental advantages. He had profited much 
by the instruction that he received from Macklin, who, 
if not always able to exemplify his own teaching, was 
unquestionably an actor of extraordinary intellectual 
resource and power. Macklin never acted Othello, 



OTHELLO 247 

but he acted I ago, not only to the Othello of Garrick 
but to that of Foote, — v/hose performance of the 
part was given February 6, 1744, at the London 
Haymarket Theatre, and was a failure. In the 
opinion of Macklin, Barry's exhibition of the con- 
trasted passions of love and jealous rage was finer 
than that accomplished by any other actor of Othello 
whom he had ever seen, and Macklin's mature and 
competent memory of the stage covered the entire 
period from the time of Betterton to that of Kemble. 
One enthusiast mentions that when Barry uttered 
the words "Rude am I in my speech" his tones were 
"as soft as feathered snowflakes that melt as they 
fall." Barry made Othello a black man, but as 
his person was tall, — ^more than five feet eleven inches, 
— and absolutely symmetrical, his countenance expres- 
sive, his smile winning, his voice rich and sweet, and, 
as, being a remarkably expert dancer and fencer, his 
demeanor and motions were graceful, he was able to 
overcome that disadvantage. There is no reason for 
doubt that among all the performers of Othello who 
appeared on the English Stage in the course of the 
eighteenth century Spranger Barry was the best. 

John Henderson did not undertake Othello but 
he played lago, and he was the first among actors of 
that part to speak the rhymed lines with which lago 
responds to Desdemona's inquiry concerning what 



248 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

would be liis praise of "a deserving woman indeed" 
as if he were slovdy and carefully composing them, 
and not speaking them as a composition wliich had 
been committed to memory. He dressed lago in 
any military garb that chanced to please his fancy, 
for he was absolutely heedless of propriety of costume. 
Record is made of the fact that he prided himself on 
having, in the course of one London season, acted 
ten different parts in the same apparel. The experi- 
enced journalist and competent critic John Taylor, 
commenting (1833) on Henderson's personation of 
lago J comprehensively remarked: "He admirably 
mingled the subtlety of the character with its reputed 
honesty." To do that was to fill a true ideal. 

JOHN PHILIP KEMBLE.— MRS. SIDDONS. 

Kemble, in accordance with his custom when per- 
forming in a work of imagination, acted Othello as 
a poetic character. "From his first entrance to his 
last," says Boaden, "he wrapped that great and ardent 
being in a mantle of mysterious solemnity, awfully 
predictive of his fate.'* The same conscientious 
authority declares that he was "grand, awful, and 
pathetic, but a European," and adds that he "never 
so completely worked himself into the character as to 
be identified with it." The fact that he was "a 



OTHELLO 249 

European" can scarcely be deemed surprising when 
it is remembered that Othello^ although called a 
Moor, is, unequivocally, drawn as an Englishman, 
and that whoever plays the pai*t conformably to the 
text cannot avoid playing it in accordance with that 
delineation. Kemble's dress, as Othello ^ was strangely 
incorrect. At one time he wore a portion of the 
uniform of a British military officer and with that 
he combined Turkish trousers and a turban! At 
another time he wore a Moorish costume, obviously 
inappropriate to a Venetian general. Macready, as 
a young actor, aged twenty-three, attended (1816) his 
performance of Othello, and saw him in Moorish 
attire. "His darkened complexion," says Macready, 
"detracted but little from the stern beauty of his com- 
manding features, and the enfolding drapery of the 
Moorish mantle hung gracefully on his erect and 
noble form." The same observer mentions "the dreary 
dulness of his cold recitation," remarks that "his read- 
ings were faultless," and adds that in his acting 
"there was no spark of feeling." In 1784 William 
Dunlap, the historian of the early American Theatre 
(then, as it chanced, a visitor in London), saw Kem- 
ble as Othello, dressed in a scarlet coat, waistcoat, 
and breeches, white silk stockings, and a long military 
cue, and at the same time he saw Robert Bensley as 
lago, in which part that actor was esteemed very good, 



250 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

dressed in a military uniform of red and blue. When 
Kemble acted, at Drury Lane, March 8, 1785, as 
Othello^ his sister, the wonderful Mrs. Siddons, 
appeared as Desdemona, greatly overweighting a part 
the predominant and essential characteristic of which 
is gentleness. Her expert use of the text, in point of 
inflection, emphasis, and shading of the meaning of 
words, — examples of which elocutionary felicity have 
been preserved, — was noted as particularly admirable. 

EDMUND KEAN. 

The most powerful impersonation of Othello that 
ever was exhibited, — ^in its effect upon the feelings, — 
if the numerous and almost invariably enthusiastic 
accounts of it which exist can be credited, was that 
of Edmund Kean. The store of superlatives with 
which the English language abounds has been well- 
nigh exhausted in the celebration of it. The address 
that Othello delivers to the Venetian Senate was, it 
appears, as spoken by Kean, a consummate achieve- 
ment of natural eloquence. Othello's greeting to Des- 
demona, on his arrival in Cyprus, was beatific in its 
expression of love. His dismissal of Cassio was noble. 
His demeanor while his mind was being poisoned by 
the artful insinuations of lago was such as to com- 
municate to an audience all the afflicting perturbation 



OTHELLO 251 

of an agonized soul. His utterance of the Farewell 
was the final, overwhelming, surpassingly pathetic 
impartment of a desolate spirit, a ruined life, and a 
broken heart. His delirium of jealousy struggling 
with love was prodigious and awful. His killing of 
Desdemona was sacrificial. His ultimate despair was 
that of a bleak agony which drowned his being in a sea 
of grief. His manner of death, making a futile 
attempt to kiss the face of his dead wife, was unspeak- 
ably piteous. Hazlitt designated Kean's Othello as 
"the finest piece of acting in the world." 

An opinion generally prevalent among commen- 
tators on this subject is that Othello, like Macbeth^ 
because he is a soldier, has had much experience in 
warfare, has performed feats of valor and endured 
many hardships, should be represented by a man of 
large size. He is called "the Moor," and he declares 
himself to be of royal lineage. Moors are not, racially, 
large men. The point is not material. It does not 
signify whether the actor who appears as Othello is 
tall or short, if he truly is able to act the part. Barry 
was tall and of large frame; Kean was of low stature 
and slender figure; each was magnificent as Othello. 

A question of practical importance, however, is 
that of Othello's color. All the actors who played 
Othello prior to Kean's assumption of the part 
made him "black," and the text contains phrases which, 



252 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

by some judges, have been thought to justify that 
usage. Such phrases as "the sooty bosom" and "old 
black ram" are, it should be observed, spoken by per- 
sons hostile to Othello and intent on expressing their 
malicious antagonism toward him. There is no better 
reason for accepting "black" as literally descriptive 
of his color than there is for thinking him a four-footed 
beast because lago calls him so. His own expression, 
"haply for I am Mack/' occurs in a speech in which he 
is humbly depreciating himself in comparison with 
the beautiful girl whom he has wedded, and it is 
figurative, not literal. A Moor is not necessarily 
black; he is tawny. Othello is not a Negro and he 
should not be represented as one. Kean was the 
first among actors of the part to recognize that fact 
and to make that distinction as to color. Further- 
more, it is essential that the actor should consider the 
imperative requirements of facial expression and 
dramatic effect. The tragedy of "Othello," written 
mostly in blank verse, and, in general, sustained upon 
a high level of thought, feeling, invention, and style, 
if it is to be acted at all should be acted in a poetical 
spirit. To take a cue from such expressions in the 
text as "thick lips" and "Barbary horse," and make 
Othello a Negro, is, necessarily, to lower the tone of 
the interpretation. Kean made him light brown, and 
his example, in that respect, has been generally fol- 



OTHELLO 253 

lowed. It seems not possible fully to depict in words 
the image of desolation that Kean became, — according 
to contemporary testimony, — when he reached the 
climax of that agonizing scene which culminates with 
the pathetic Farewell. Recorders of his achievement 
dwell particularly on the quality of his voice, — the 
thrilling tones, flowing as if out of the depth of a 
broken heart, — in which he uttered the desolate lines, 

"O now, forever. 
Farewell the tranquil mind ! Farewell content !" 

and his coincident action, culminating in a complete 
physical as well as spiritual collapse, when, as he 
moaned forth "Othello's occupation's gone!" he raised 
his arms, clasped his hands, and sank back, in the 
abject misery of ruin. His voice, said Hazlitt, "struck 
on the heart like the swelling of some divine music." 
"My father told me" (so wrote Edwin Booth) "that 
in his opinion no mortal man could equal Kean in the 
rendering of Othello's despair and rage, and that, 
above all, his not very melodious voice, in many pas- 
sages, notably that ending ^vith 'Farewell, Othello's 
occupation's gone!' sounded like the moan of ocean 
or the soughing of the wind through cedars." 
His manner of ejaculating, to Desdemona, — in the 
tempest of contention between love and fury that 
makes Othello almost a madman, in the dreadful scene 



254 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

in which he accuses his wife of infidehty, — "Would 
thou had'st ne'er been born!" is said to have reached 
the uttermost of pathos. The exclamation, "O fool! 
fool! fool!" when Desdemona is dead and lago's mon- 
strous villany has been revealed came from his lips 
in a heart-rending whisper of agony. In our time 
only one actor whom I recall has caused a like effect 
with it. That actor was Gustavus Vaughan Brooke 
(1818-1867), a man of deep heart, commanding 
presence, and rare dramatic ability, whose performance 
of Othello was noble, passionate, and true. Brooke 
put into the iterated utterance of that little word 
the whole vast volume of Othello's love and woe. The 
sob with which he accented the last word was afflic- 
tive in its excitation of sympathy and grief. Kean's 
frequent employment of a sob is mentioned in several 
contemporary accounts of him: when his powers 
were failing he used it so frequently, indeed, that on 
one occasion he was hissed for it, and he is said to have 
remarked, "They have found me out." Brooke could 
not have been an imitator of Kean. He was only 
fifteen years old and was resident in Dublin, when 
Kean, who had long been ill and broken, and whom 
he had never seen, died, 1833, at Richmond, near Lon- 
don. He had, however, acted with Forrest, who 
had learned much from Kean and who, rightly and 
naturally, made use of what he had learned, and 



OTHELLO 255 

thus, no doubt, transmitted much to Brooke. An 
illuminating remark about Kean's acting was made 
by the poet Southey, who said that, when inflamed 
with passion, — which he could simulate with terrify- 
ing fidelity, — he looked "like Michael Angelo's rebel- 
lious archangel." His voice, by some writers said to 
have been deficient of melody, was, on the contrary, 
according to musical authority, one of exceptional 
range, and could be loud or low, piercing or soft, as 
his will directed; William Gardiner, in his "The 
Music of Nature," first published during Kean's life, 
said, "Mr. Kean possesses the greatest number of 
effects, having a range of tones from F below the 
line to F above it, the natural key of his voice being 
that of Bb, a note lower than Talma's." 

JUNIUS BRUTUS BOOTH. 

The elder Booth gave a performance of Othello 
which, by some contemporary admirers of his acting, 
was esteemed kindred with that of Edmund Kean in 
nobility and pathos. Those two actors, while present- 
ing various points of difference, resembled each other 
in important particulars, so that, in dramatic history, 
their names have become almost inseparable. As to 
Booth's impersonation of Othello there are many wild 
stories. One declares that he acted the part arrayed in 



256 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

an old yellow faded dressing-gown ; another that, on one 
occasion, having no black stockings, he blackened his 
legs as well as his face and hands, and thereby, in the 
course of the performance, soiled the white dress of the 
fair Desdemona. The fact is he bronzed his face and 
hands for Othello, as Kean had done, and he pre- 
sented him not as a Negro but as a Moor. Booth 
did not, at any time, give scrupulous heed to costume, 
and at all times he was more or less erratic; but he 
was a great actor, — greater in Sir Giles, Pescara, and 
Richard than in Othello, His practice of fitting 
the sound to the sense, in the delivery of a poetic 
text, was felicitously evinced in his speaking of 
Othello's address to the Senate, and contemporary 
celebration of his acting commends as exceedingly 
beautiful his utterance of the lovely passage, — so 
peculiarly illuminative of Othello's nature, — begin- 
ning "If it were now to die, 'twere now to be most 
happ3^" Clarity of articulation and careful dis- 
tribution of accent were among the conspicuous 
merits of his delivery, — as, indeed, they were among 
those of the speech of many actors of his period, such 
as James W. Wallack, William Warren, James E. 
Murdoch, John Gilbert, John E. Owens, Henry Pla- 
cide, W. H. Smith, and William Rufus Blake. It 
is recorded as an excellence of his Othello that he dis- 
missed Cassio without any denotement of wounded 



OTHELLO 257 

affection, whereas that was a manifest fault, — because 
Othello is deeply grieved. "Cassio, I love thee; 
but nevermore be officer of mine" is not the language 
of a mere military martinet. In uttering the Fare- 
well, a* "Othello's occupation's gone!" he stood erect, 
gazing^ into space, spellbound in misery. As usual 
with him, it was not until he had made a considerable 
progress into the play that his power and fire were 
fully liberated, — the great, surging outburst coming, 
in his Othello, at the terrible conflict of passion in 
the Temptation Scene, in tne dreadful Third Act. 
He spoke the passage beginning "Like to the Pontic 
Sea," — a passage always omitted by Edmund Kean, 
whose strength was not equal to it, — and he made it 
tremendously effective. When, at the last, he entered 
the chamber to do the killing of Desdemona he 
carried a lighted lamp in one hand and a naked 
simitar in the other, and he maintained an aspect of 
deadly calm. The design of the actor apparently, 
from the first moment when Othello's jealousy had 
been awakened, was to allow an Oriental temperament 
to show itself, slowly prevailing over the adopted 
customs of the Christian. Booth's final business, 
which was exceedingly artificial, was to throw a silken 
robe across his shoulders and draw from a turban, 
on his head, a dagger which had been concealed in 
it, with which he stabbed himself to the heart. His 



258 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

son Edwin wrote of him that his treatment of Othello 
was "eminently Shakespearean and profoundly affect- 
ing," and gave also tliis singular information: "If 
'Othello' were billed for the evening, he would, per- 
haps, wear a crescent pin on his breast that day, or, 
disregarding the fact that Shakespeare's Moor was a 
Christian, he would mumble maxims of the Koran." 



KEAN AND BOOTH. 

Three years after Kean had made his dramatic 
conquest of London and when he was at the summit 
of his renown, acting at Drury Lane, Junius Brutus 
Booth appeared at Covent Garden, February 12, 
1817, as Richard, and astonished the public not less 
by his striking resemblance to Kean than by his mag- 
nificent performance. Much attention instantly con- 
centrated itself on this surprising newcomer; the 
adherents of Kean became worried, thinking that a 
rival to the god of their idolatry might have arrived, 
and measures were taken by them to bring the 
question of rivalry at once to a test. Kean called on 
Booth and invited him to leave Covent Garden and 
come to Drury Lane, the purpose being, as alleged 
at the time, to bring him out, at the latter theatre, 
in a disadvantageous position, and thus to check his 
advancement. Booth, being young and inexperi- 



OTHELLO 259 

enced, — ^he was only twenty-one years old, — accepted 
the invitation, and on February 20 "Othello" was 
presented, Kean acting Othello and Booth acting 
lago. A person, now dead, who was in the audience 
that night told me that both actors put forth all 
their powers ; that the representation was exceptionally 
brilliant; that Kean acted with more splendor of 
passion and melting charm of pathos than he had 
ever shown before in the part of Othello, completely 
excelling himself; and that Booth, although admirable, 
was obliterated. A prominent theatrical writer of 
the period, William Oxberry, recorded that "Kean, 
on this occasion, outdid all his former outdoings, and 
Booth, though lago is not a part for applause, elicited 
it in eveiy scene save the drinking one." Booth 
accepted his reverse, returned to Covent Garden, 
where, after several riots, he was allowed to act, and 
continued his career, — coming to America in 1820-21. 
The performance of "Othello" in which those two 
wonderful actors cooperated must indeed have been 
extraordinary, and its occurrence is a memorable fact 
in the history of the play. Kean's last appearance 
on the stage was made as Othello, March 25, 1833, 
at Covent Garden, — his son Charles acting lago. He 
died, May 15, 1833, at Richmond, and his grave is 
near to that of Thomson, the poet of "The Seasons," 
in the old. church of that storied town. 



260 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

MACREADY AND PHELPS. 

Macready seems neither to have satisfied himself 
(he was a judicious and stern critic of his art), nor 
deeply moved his auditors, in the acting of Othello, 
but he particularly excelled as lago. That result 
might have been expected. It is not unjust to his 
memory to say that his intellectuality exceeded his 
tenderness. Writing in 1835 Macready made this 
comment on his Othello: "I do not find that I yet 
give that real pathos and terrible fury which belong 
to the character," and also he described his persona- 
tion as "elaborate but not abandoned." The part had 
then been included in his repertory for nineteen years. 
His make-up for Othello was Venetian and correct. 
Othello is not only an officer in the military service 
of the Venetian government, but he has abjured 
the religion of Mahomet and become a Christian. 
There can be no question as to the costume that 
he should wear, and Macready was too much a 
scholar and thinker and too scrupulous an executant 
to have made a mistake as to Othello's raiment. 
Hazlitt, generally a discriminative but sometimes 
a splenetic, censorious critic, tartly remarked (1816), 
relative to Charles Mayne Young and Macready, 
who were then acting together in this tragedy, and 
alternating the two great parts, that "Young, in 




J^/'o»i a photograph by Biailj 

EDWIX FORREST AS OTHELLO 



OTHELLO 261 

Othello, was like a great humming-top, and Macready, 
in lagOj like a mischievous boy whipping him." The 
greatness of Macready's acting was exhibited in the 
thrilling revealment of MachetJis agonized and 
haunted soul, and in the full denotement of the terrific 
frenzy of King Lear, but not in Othello, — his per- 
formance of which, nevertheless, gained praise for 
"condensation of vigorous utterance and masculine 
expression." 

Samuel Phelps, while he seems to have followed in 
a conventional track when acting Othello, seems like- 
wise to have given a judicious, potent, and effective 
performance. He followed old stage traditions in 
causing Othello to strangle Desdemona behind cur- 
tains, in an alcove at the back of the closing scene. An 
English critic, of judgment and taste, F. C. Tomlins 
(he died in 1867), wrote, of Phelps's Othello: "The 
great and pathetic speech of the Farewell was given 
with consummate art and force; the images rose one 
after the other into a grand climax, till they were all 
scattered by the last, despairing line." 

EARLY AMERICAN STAGE. 

Among the performers of Othello on the American 
stage, in early times, were Robert Upton, David 
Douglass, William Hallam, and John Henry. The 



262 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

first representation of the tragedy given in America 
occurred at the theatre in Nassau Street, New York, 
December 26, 1751. Upton played Othello. The 
performance given by John Henry, a handsome man, 
six feet in height, was thought to be more than 
ordinarily good. He wore the uniform of a British 
military officer of the period. His face was black 
and his hair woolly. He made Othello a Negro. 
James Fennell (1766-1816) long retained the part in 
his repertory, and his personation of it, when he acted 
in America, was highly extolled. "His appearance in 
the Moors, Othello and Zanga" says Dunlap, "was 
noble. His face appeared better and more expressive 
and his towering figure superb." Fennell had light- 
gray eyes and yellow eyebrows and eyelashes, and he 
needed "make-up" to produce facial effect, but he was 
judiciously accounted one of the best tragedians of his 
day. John Hodgkinson, one of the most versatile 
actors of whom there is record, while better suited 
for comedy than tragedy, nevertheless attempted 
tragic parts, but his performance of Othello was 
neither authoritatively commended nor particularly 
described. He acted the part, February 6, 1793, at 
the John Street Theatre, New York, with that excel- 
lent actor Lewis Hallam, second of the name, nephew 
of William Hallam, as lago. Thomas Abthorpe 
Cooper, whose career was brilliant and whose reper- 



OTHELLO 263 

tory comprised two hundred and sixty-four parts, 
obtained his brightest laurels in Macbeth and 
Virginius, but the veteran John Bernard, a criti- 
cal observer not prone to effusive encomium, records 
the opinion that Cooper's performance of Othello was 
equal to that of Bariy, — which, of course, he had seen, 
— and S. C. Carpenter, writing in 1810, declared that, 
in the last act of the tragedy. Cooper's acting was 
"superlatively great." Cooper was an actor remark- 
able for intrinsic majesty of bearing and deep tender- 
ness of feeling as well as lively imagination and 
exquisite taste. He made Othello's complexion brown 
and he wore a Venetian dress. He also acted lago, 
and his performance is recorded as "insidious and 
pliant in manner, the complete, smooth, varnished 
villain." 

EDWIN FORREST. 

Edwin Forrest (1806-1872), who formed his style 
largely on that of Cooper and somewhat on that of 
Edmund Kean, with both of whom he had acted and 
both of whom he fervently admired, gave a potent 
performance of Othello, not, however, free from that 
animal coarseness which was more or less apparent in 
all his acting. To deprecate that coarseness was, in 
Forrest's time, — and, to some extent, is now, — to incur 
the reproach of being puny, or over-fastidious, or lit- 



264 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

eraiy, or undemocratic, or prone to "silk-stocking" 
views of life and art. The Rev. William Rounseville 
Alger, the principal biographer of that great actor, 
— for a great actor he was, in his peculiar field and 
within his obvious, specific limitations, — informs his 
readers that Forrest's portraiture of Othello was some- 
times subjected to "censorious criticism" for the 
reason that "the scale and fervor of the passions 
bodied forth in it were so much beyond the experi- 
ence of average natures; they were not exaggerated 
or false, but seemed so to the cold or petty souls 
who knew nothing of the lava-floods of bliss and 
avalanches of woe that ravage the sensibilities of 
the impassioned souls that find complete fulfilment 
and lose it." Much fustian, of which that is a 
specimen, was written about Forrest, in his life- 
time, and it has been occasionally written about him 
since his death. The fact is that he lacked refine- 
ment, and that until late in life, when he had 
greatly suffered, and when his King Lear became a 
royal and deeply pathetic impersonation, his best 
acting was exhibited in parts that permitted a liberal 
display of muscularity. He lacked spirituality, and, 
as a general thing, he lacked poetry. His acting 
was radically literal. He was a robust man, he 
possessed a magnificent voice, and always in Sparta- 



OTHELLO 265 

cits^ Jack Cade, and Metamora, and often in parts 
of higher range, such as Virginius, Damon, Othello, 
and King Lear, he acted with a tremendous vigor that 
stirred the multitude, more particularly the "average 
natures," much as a tempest stirs the waves of the 
sea. He impressed his style on the acting and on 
the popular taste of his generation, he inspired numer- 
our imitators, and when at his meridian he was the 
most widely and generally admired actor in America* 
Upon the part of Othello he bestowed exceptional 
attention, and his performance of it was the most 
symmetrical, rounded, and finished of his achieve- 
ments, — unless, indeed, that distinction should be 
awarded to his Febro, in "The Broker of Bogot-a." 
His appearance in Othello was imposing, notwith- 
standing the ridiculous attire with which he invested 
himself, and his acting was powerful and at times 
fraught with a barbaric splendor of distinction all 
his own. He wore, as Othello, a tunic, cut low in the 
neck, dark-colored tights, low shoes fastened with straps 
and adorned with buckles, an ample silk mantle 
spotted with large gilt leaves, a turbanlike hat, 
resembling an inverted saucepan, and a dress sword. 
His face was clean-shaved, except for his usual mus- 
tache and tuft of hair under the lower lip, and his 
color was dark brown. In the opening scenes he bore 



266 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

himself with a fine, soHd dignity, suitable to a massive 
person and a composed, deliberate mind. In the pas- 
sion and agony of the Third and Fourth Acts he put 
forth his powers with prodigious effect. His delivery 
of the Farewell was a sonorous, various, sldlful 
achievement of elocution, and at that point his rich 
voice was heard with delight. The ensuing transition 
was made suddenly and with startling effect, when, 
with a wild, insane fury, he turned upon lago, 
clutching him by the throat, and in the speech begin- 
ning "If thou dost slander her and torture me" he 
reached a supreme altitude of frenzy. In the last 
scene he so arranged the stage business that he was 
"discovered," Desdemona, meanwhile, being asleep in 
bed. The killing was done quickly and with judicious, 
artistic avoidance of coarse and horrible literalism, 
an avoidance as effective as it was unusual in his act- 
ing. The subsequent action, on the revelation of 
lago's treachery, was nobly tragic. No player could 
ever have spoken with more effect "Wash me in steep- 
down gulfs of liquid fire." The suicide was accom- 
plished with one blow of a dagger, and the death was 
immediate. 

EDWIN THOMAS BOOTH. 

On the American Stage the sceptre that slipped 
from the hand of Edwin Forrest was grasped by the 



OTHELLO 267 

hand of Edwin Booth. It was my fortune to see 
Booth many times in Othello. His performance 
varied greatly; it was sometimes defective by reason 
of a certain element of unfitness, — namely, the invol- 
untary infusion into it of a mentality too keenly per- 
ceptive and intuitive for the character; but the per- 
formance was invariably a skilful, fascinating work 
of art. It especially excelled in the expression of 
Othello's love for Desdemona, — a love which contem- 
plates its object as invested with sanctity; and also 
in the winning denotement of Othello's magnanimity. 
On one occasion, at Booth's Theatre, it was my 
privilege to see him act the part to perfection. No 
affluence of emotion and no skill of beautiful artistic 
treatment could have improved the performance. I 
talked with him after the last curtain had fallen and 
told him that I had never seen him act the part as well. 
"I have never played Othello so well before," he said, 
"and I shall never play it so well again." He had, 
though greatly agitated, succeeded in maintaining 
absolute control of himself and of the part and, at the 
same time, in creating an effect of complete spon- 
taneity and abandonment. His feelings, — for he was 
a man of tender heart and acute sensibility, notwith- 
standing the exceptional dominance of intellect In his 
nature, — had been so completely aroused that, after 
the self-contained, majestic opening, he seemed to be 



268 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

swept along upon a veritable tempest of passion, 
and he carried his auditors with him as leaves are 
swept by the whirlwind. 

In the killing of Desdemona, which, terrible though 
it be, is, in her husband's belief, a righteous immolation, 
Othello is like a priest at the altar. There is then 
no anger in his conduct. The man has passed 
through a hell of anguish and passionate conflict, 
has fallen in epileptic fits, has barely survived an 
ordeal of maddening torture, and at last he is calm, 
in the concentration of despair. Desdemona must 
die, because, as he believes, it is necessary and right. 
He is not doing a murder; he is doing what he thinks 
to be an act of justice. He confidently supposes 
himself to be fulfilling a sacred duty of sacrifice. 
He is the wretched victim of a horrible delusion, 
but in that awful moment he is a sublime figure, 
an incarnation at once of rectitude and misery. That 
was the eminence to which Edwin Booth attained in 
his personation of Othello^ and his acting, in that 
scene, on that occasion, has not been surpassed by 
any performer of our time. 



DAWISON AND BOOTH. 

One of the most pathetic moments in acting that I 
have known, or that, as I believe, was ever known by 



OTHELLO 269 

anybody, was the moment when the German tragedian 
Bogumil Dawison (1818-1872), playing Othello, 
raised the dead body of Desdemona in his arms, 
and, swaying to and fro, in utter, abject, unspeak- 
able misery, with excruciating sobs, three or four 
times, in accents of heart-rending lamentation, moaned 
out her name. The Dawison performance of 
"Othello" was given December 29, 1866, at the old 
Winter Garden Theatre (which stood on the west 
side of Broadway, nearly opposite to the end of 
Bond Street, New York), in association with Edwin 
Booth, as lago, and Mme. Methua-Scheller, as Des- 
demona. Dawison spoke German, Booth and the 
members of his company spoke English, and Mme. 
Methua-Scheller spoke both languages. That was 
the first of the polyglot representations of Shake- 
speare with which the American Stage has been dis- 
figured, but it discovered some remarkably fine effects. 
Dawison was, at that time, fulfilling a professional 
engagement at the old Stadt Theatre, in the Bowery. 
In the production of "Othello" which was made for 
him by Booth, at the Winter Garden, the colloquies 
that begin the Fourth Act, — comprehending Othello's 
epileptic fit and Cassio's contemptuous reference to 
his mistress, Bianca, which Othello overhears, suppos- 
ing it to be allusive to Desdemona, — were restored. 
That part of the tragedy, containing the final and 



270 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

decisive stroke of lago's deadly artifice, contains 
also such foulness and such excess of agony that, 
commonly, it is omitted. Many lines of "Othello," 
indeed, must be discarded in order that it may be 
made endurable, not to say decent, in a pubUc rep- 
resentation, and, matchless though it is as a piece of 
dramatic construction, the community, perhaps, would 
not suffer an irreparable loss if it were altogether rele- 
gated from the stage to the library. There can be 
no doubt, however, that it exactly fulfils the purpose 
of tragedy as defined by Aristotle, — the excitation, 
namely, of pity and terror. No adequate present- 
ment of it ever yet failed to provide a solemn warn- 
ing against the passion of jealousy — always cruel in 
its operation, and often appalling in its consequences. 
Booth made a fine production of "Othello," 
October, 1862, at the Winter Garden Theatre (which 
was burned down March 22, 1867), and another, more 
elaborate and splendid, at Booth's Theatre, April 12, 
1869. On the later occasion lago was acted by Edwin 
Adams, while Mary McVicker (she was married to 
Booth in the following June) appeared as Desde- 
mona, and, in the Fifth Act, sang the Willow Song, 
the effect of which was ominous and sadly beautiful. 
It had not, I believe, been heard on the dramatic stage 
before that time, and it has not been heard there 
since. 




From a photograph by Saroni/ 

EDWIN BOOTH AS lAGO 



OTHELLO 271 

BOOTH AS I AGO. 

Booth gave incomparably the best performance of 
lago that has been seen on our stage within the 
last fifty years. His lago, when in company, was 
entirely frank and not only plausible but winning. 
The gay, light-hearted, good-humored soldier whom 
he thus presented would have deceived anybody, and 
did easily deceive Othello, who, as Kemble truly and 
shrewdly remarked, is "a slow man," — ^meaning a man 
slow to those passions which shatter the judgment. 
Nothing could be more absolutely specious and con- 
vincingly sympathetic than Booth's voice, manner, 
and whole personality were when he said, "There's 
matter in 't indeed, if he be angry!" The duplicity 
of the character, when visible in association with 
others, was made evident to the audience by the subtle 
use of gesture and facial play, by perfect employ- 
ment of the indefinable but instantly perceptible 
expedient of transparency, — and it was only when 
alone that his lago revealed his frightful wickedness 
and his fiendish joy in it, and there was, in that 
revealment, an icy malignity of exultation that caused 
a strange effect of mingled admiration and fear. 
Although we must detest lago even while we admire 
and shudder at him, he not only supplies the motive 
and inspires the action of the tragedy, but also he 



272 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

is the most interesting figure in it, even if the interest 
be akin to the fascinated loathing inspired by a 
deadly reptile. 

BOOTH AND HENRY IRVING. 

Henry Irving acted Othello for the first time 
on February 14, 1876, at the London Lyceum, giving 
a performance which, if it had been given at a later 
period in his astonishing career, would have com- 
manded high respect for scholarship, taste, and feel- 
ing, but which then was savagely censured in many 
newspapers: it was withdrawn in April. There could 
be no doubt of the actor's complete comprehension 
of the part: Irving knew the great characters of 
Shakespeare and the great feelings of humanity, 
through and through: but it was thought that his 
personal idiosyncrasy made him unfit for the part of 
Othello, and he laid it aside. In 1880 Edwin Booth 
appeared in London, at the Princess's Theatre, where 
he gave 119 consecutive performances, his repertory 
on that occasion including Hmnlet, Richelieu, lago, 
Othello, King Lear, Bertuccio, and Petruchio. After 
his engagement had ended he conceived the idea of 
giving a series of afternoon performances, and he 
communicated to Irving his wish to give them at the 
Lyceum Theatre. His proposition was accepted, but 
Irving was of opinion that a production of "Othello" 



OTHELLO 273 

in which Booth and himself should appear, alternating 
Othello and lugo, would strongly attract the public 
and prove largely remunerative. That plan he sug- 
gested and Booth cordially concun-ed in it. "Othello" 
was produced at the Lyceum on May 2, 1881, Booth 
acting Othello and Irving acting lago, — for the first 
time. Ellen Terry was the Desdemona; William 
Terriss the Cassio; Thomas Mead the Brabantio, and 
the now celebrated dramatist Arthur Wing Pinero 
the Roderigo. 

The intimation was, after a time, duly supplied, 
relative to the alliance of Irving and Booth in their 
production of "Othello" at the London Lyceum, that 
Irving had formed a sinister scheme for the ruin of 
Booth as an actor. Ii-ving, no doubt, would have 
been glad to prove himself a greater actor than Booth 
in two of the best acting parts in Shakespeare, and 
Booth, on the other hand, would have been glad to 
excel Irving and to find himself hailed as the better 
actor of the two. I was intimately acquainted with 
both of them, and I can testify, from positive knowl- 
edge, that each of them regarded the other as, 
intrinsically, the only formidable rival on the stage of 
their time. The rivalry between them, however, was 
not less honorable than natural. It was the rivalry 
of emulation. The charge that Irving either 
attempted or wished to injure Booth in the esteem 



274 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

of the English public was, and is, ridiculous. The 
trial that Irving proposed was eminently a fair one, 
and, if disadvantageous to either party, disadvan- 
tageous to himself. Booth had been for many years 
habitually acting both Othello and lago. He was 
thoroughly "up" in each part, and he had been vic- 
torious in both, in London as well as in America. 
Irving had not acted in "Othello" for five years, 
when he had, for a short time, "put up" that play 
and appeared as the Moor, and he had never acted 
lago. It was necessary for him to "recover" Othello 
and to learn lago, and that work he was constrained 
to accomplish while attending to the business of his 
theatre, providing for an entirely new production 
of the tragedy, rehearsing the company, — a duty 
which Booth, with characteristic inertia, was glad to 
escape, — and acting at night, as Synorix, in "The 
Cup," and as Doricourt, in "The Belle's Stratagem." 
Booth, meanwhile, was resting. A more liberal 
arrangement than that proposed by Irving could not 
have been conceived, nor a more intrepid, self- 
confident spirit displayed than was displayed by 
him. 

The opening performance was accounted remark- 
ably brilliant. The two chieftains were liberally 
extolled, public opinion, in general, placing them on 
about the same level. On May 4 the exchange of parts 



OTHELLO 275 

first occurred. Booth assuming lago and Ii-ving assum- 
ing Othello. The dominance of the American actor 
on that occasion was incontestable, — not that Booth's 
lago was universally thought to excel that of Irving, 
but that Irving's Othello, compared with that of 
Booth, was ineffective and decidedly inferior. The 
engagement lasted from May 2 till June 11 and it 
was continuously prosperous: the tragedy was acted, 
however, only three times each week during that 
period. The prices of seats were raised. More 
than £4000 had been paid into the Lyceum treasury 
before the first performance was given. Irving's 
lago, which was a positive novelty, was picturesque 
in appearance, genial and winning in manner when 
in company, openly sardonic, villanous, and odious 
when alone and speaking the soliloquies, marked 
by supreme identification, and, as to details, beauti- 
fully finished. While watching Cassio and Desde- 
mona, "Ay, smile upon her, do," he stood aside, 
unnoted, and as he spoke the soliloquy slowly picked 
rich, ripe grapes and ate them, spitting out the 
seeds, between phrases. In the scene at Cyprus, 
on the "court of guard," when lago makes Cassio 
drunk, his vigilant but veiled craft and light, banter- 
ing demeanor were especially effective. In relating 
to Othello the incidents of the drunken brawl his 
bearing and speech were aptly and happily expressive 



276 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

of friendly solicitude and grieved affection, — a con- 
summate display of perfect, victorious hypocrisy. In 
the distressing scene of lago's beguilement of Othello 
his insidious deceit and his maintenance of a deadly, 
persistent, exultant joy, artfully restrained and hid- 
den from his victim, caused both admiration and 
horror. In the night scene in Cyprus, in which Cassio 
is attacked by Roderigo and subsequently stabbed by 
lago^ at "Who's there? whose noise is this that cries 
on murder?" Irving came on alone, before Lodovico 
and Gratiano, and the business which he used was 
commended as "singularly happy." One observer 
described it thus: 

"It is the last scene of the Fourth Act, a narrow, dimly- 
lighted street, made darker yet by the tall houses that close it 
in. Roderigo lies dead (sic) upon the ground, and Cassio 
wounded and alone with his deadliest foe. As the scene is 
here played, no others are with the two. The night is dark, 
and the town very silent. As lago bends over the wounded 
man the thought flashes across him, 'Why not get rid of the 
two at one happy stroke.'*' and with the thought he raises his 
sword. Another moment and Cassio is gone to join Roderigo, 
but, ere the moment can pass, the called-for succor comes, and 
the murderer's hand is stayed. Whether there be warrant for 
this in any of the texts we know not, but the effect is very 
fine." 

The effect was very fine, — but the arrangement of 
the scene and the illustrative business were invented 



OTHELLO 277 

and first used by Edwin Booth, years before that 
Lyceum revival: they had been seen, and they were 
copied from Booth, by Irving. Booth's "Prompt 
Book" of "Othello" was pubhshed in 1878. 

After the Lyceum engagement had ended Booth 
publicly declared, June, 1881; 

"I was never received more heartily in all my life than by 
the audiences drawn together when I played in London. I 
have had a most delightful experience, socially, professionally, 
and in every respect, with exception of the unfortunate illness 
of my wife. . . . My engagement with Irving was one of 
the most agreeable that I have ever played. He is one of 
the most delightful men I have ever met: always obliging, and 
always kind in every possible way." 

And in writing to me (Booth never hesitated to free 
his mind to me, on any subject) he said, relative to 
his Lyceum season: 

"Its success is very great, in all respects, and only my 
domestic misery prevents it from being the happiest theatrical 
experience I have ever had. I wish I could do as much for 
Henry Irving in America as he has done here for me!" 

Booth's Othello costumes were, — ^First Dress: A 
long gown of cashmere, wrought with gold and 
various colors. This was looped up on the hip, on 
the left side, with a jewelled fastening. A Moorish 
bumoose, striped with purple and gold. Purple 
velvet shoes, embroidered with gold and pearl. A 



278 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

sash of green and gold. A jewelled chain. Second 
Dress: Steel plate armor. A white burnoose, made 
of African goat's hair. Third Dress: A long 
white gown, Moorish, with hood and scarlet trim- 
mings. A wliite sash made of goat's hair. Scarlet 
velvet shoes. Pearl earrings. These dresses were 
intended by Booth to depict a gorgeous barbaric 
taste, modified by partial conformance to Christian 
and Venetian custom. They were, substantially, 
incorrect. 

Irving made Othello, practically, black. Ellen 
Terry has recorded, in her "Recollections," that he 
used much pigment, and that on eveiy occasion when 
she acted Desdemona to his Othello her dress and 
arms were soiled by contact with him. His dress was 
rich and significant of an Oriental taste. In the First 
Act he wore a capacious scarlet cloak, with a hood. 
Later, he wore a loose, amber-colored robe, a purple 
gabardine heavily brocaded, and a small white tur- 
ban — the latter somewhat similar to that shown in old 
prints of Barry as Othello. Irving's I ago adorned 
his person with raiment distinctly unsuitable, because 
of its opulence, to either the character of the man 
or the rank of the officer. His dress comprised, 
among other trappings, a crimson and gold jerkin, 
a cloak, of dull dark green color, and a scarlet 
mantle. lago is, comparatively, poor and necessitous. 



OTHELLO 279 

according to his statement about himself, and he is 
occupied, aside from other nefarious business, in 
swindling, and he follows the wars for "present 
living." 

Booth's acting of Othello and lago, although it 
elicited earnest and cordial commendation, in print, 
was by some London writers unjustly, ignorantly, 
and impertinently disparaged. One censor emitted 
the sapient observation that, in speaking, he "gobbled 
like a turkey" — a remarkable discovery, indeed, to 
have been made relative to one of the best elocu- 
tionists that ever spoke, whether on the Stage or 
off. Another pundit ascertained that Booth lacked 
distinction, at the same time affirming that Irving, — 
who, of course, possessed it, as everybody knows 
who ever saw him, — much resembled Booth! Such 
prattle of mean detraction, not intelligent enough 
to be even logical, is worth notice only as a detail 
of historical record. Irving himself, who in early 
life was a careful student of elocution, considered 
Booth to be the finest reader he had ever heard, and 
often expressed that opinion. Booth has been dead 
eighteen years, and in that time much is forgotten, but 
persons still living who heard the music of his tones 
and were moved by the exquisite beauty of his utter- 
ance will never forget the charm of his speech. 
More than half a century ago, in Boston, I chanced 



280 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

to see him, in the crowded street, dark, straight, lithe 
as an Indian, and I marked, as he walked swiftly 
through the crowd, that many persons turned to gaze 
after him, so remarkable was his aspect of dignity, so 
distinguished his demeanor. Edwin Booth and Henry 
Irving unquestionably' were rivals, but there never 
was the slightest need that either of them should be 
disparaged for the glorification of the other. At 
a time when German critics were contending as to 
the relative greatness of Goethe and Schiller, Goethe 
disposed of the subject by exclaiming, "Let them 
be thankful that they have two such fellows to talk 
about." The supremacy of Booth in "Othello" is 
settled by one decisive fact. Irving, who lived till 
1905, never acted either Othello or lago after June 
15, 1881. Booth acted both parts, in Great Britain, 
Germany, the United States, and Canada, until 
nearly the close of his life — his last appearance in 
the tragedy being at the Broadway Theatre, New 
York, March 20, 1891, — and always to crowded 
houses and with great success. 

EDWARD LOOMIS DAVENPORT. 

An exceptionally fine performance of lago was 
that given by Edward Loomis Davenport (1815- 
1877). The maintenance of a bluff manliness of 



OTHELLO 281 

demeanor and an aspect of jovial good nature, in 
lago's colloquies with Cassio, was, in Davenport's 
assumption of the villanous Ancient, so easy, spon- 
taneous, and engaging as entirely to account for 
Cassio's beguilement. His plausibility, in lago's 
subtle, wicked instillation of jealousy into the mind 
of Othello, was perfect. No actor of the part could 
ever have more completely justified the confidence of 
his deluded victim: 

"This fellow 's of exceeding honesty, 
And knows all qualities, with a learned spirit, 
Of human dealings." 

Virtue, candor, sympathy, and sincerity made up 
the outward show of the personation, beneath which, 
revealed in the soliloquies and in the sinister treachery 
of the action, surged a frightful spirit of odious malice 
and devilish delight. Strange indeed it seemed that 
the man who could act William, in "Black-Eyed 
Susan," in such a way as to touch every heart and 
win not only admiration but affection could also 
act lago in such a way as to inspire horror and 
loathing. As to the style of Booth and Daven- 
port, no competent judge of acting ever questioned 
its spontaneity, flexibility, and absolute consonance 
with Nature. No actor of the present day (1911) 
has surpassed, very few have equalled, either of 



282 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

those actors in the matter of being "natural" with- 
out ceasing to be artistic and interesting, — and 
they thus excelled, it should be remembered, in poetic 
tragedy, not by the employment of photographic 
copies of the surface aspects of vulgar life. If Daven- 
port's personation of Othello, — for he also acted that 
part with abundant success, — had been as true in 
pathos as it was symmetrical in form it would have 
been perfect. 

JOHN EDWARD McCULLOUGH. 

Behind the artist stands the individual, the per- 
sonality, from wliich the artist, however imaginative 
and however expert in assuming guises that imagina- 
tion frames, can not and does not escape. John 
McCullough, intrinsically, was a noble person, and 
the inherent nobility of his nature was the basis 
of the greatness of his embodiment of Othello, — one 
of the best embodiments of that character which have 
been seen in our time, or, as I believe, in any time. 
The man was a rock of truth and he possessed 
absolute poise of self, at once royal and simple. 
His acting was pervaded by a profound and lovely 
sincerity. He was of commanding stature, his 
features were bold and regular, and he possessed 
unusual strength and a melodious voice. With the 
incarnate magnanimity of Othello he was naturally 



OTHELLO 283 

sympathetic, and his potent and winning personality, 
combined with a perfect command of his rare, diversi- 
fied, and cultivated dramatic faculties and his capa- 
bility of rising to great occasions, made him supremely 
true and deeply affecting in that part. His ideal 
was poetic, his execution plain, direct, and decisive. 
At the beginning he did not, even remotely, suggest 
a man predestined to a tragic fate, and in that par- 
ticular his Othello was, practically, unique, — Salvini 
alone resembling him in treatment of the first entrance. 
He was of "a free and open nature," absolutely happy, 
— his manner that of dignified authority, but manly, 
confiding, and attractive. The right note was exactly 
sounded in the manner of that entrance, for when 
the mind of such a man as he displayed is shattered 
by jealousy, — when that cruel, fatal passion has 
torn liis heart, — the contrast which is afforded becomes 
vivid and afflicting, and the inevitable ruin will be 
no less pathetic than terrific. The calm glance of 
surprise, at lago, as that miscreant uttered his lie 
about having thought to have "yerk'd" JRoderigo 
under the ribs, the composure of '"Tis better as it is," 
the modesty of "Let him do his spite," the easy 
dominance with which he quelled the turbulent dis- 
putants, at "Keep up your bright swords," and at 
"Hold your hands," were perfectly accordant with 
the equanimity and sweet gravity of the character. 



284 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

and finely effective. In the explanatory speech to 
the Senate he was open, ingenuous, eloquent, essen- 
tially noble; in the meeting with Desdemona gentle 
and tender, almost awe-stricken, — as if it were not 
possible that such happiness could be found on earth; 
imperious and majestic in subduing the riotous tumult 
on "the court of guard"; dangerous and threaten- 
ing, though restrained at "My blood begins my 
safer guides to rule"; thrilling and terrible at the 
climax of the colloquy with lagOj "If thou dost 
slander her and torture me"; piteous in the heart- 
rending delivery of Othello's "Farewell content"; and 
rightly and pathetically sacrificial in the awful scene 
that culminates in the killing of Desdemona. His cry 
of anguish when the wretched man becomes aware 
of his fatal error was more deeply fraught with the 
delirium of a half -crazed mind and the misery of a 
broken heart than any words of mine can say. 
Throughout the performance there was no element of 
self-consciousness. The identification was complete. 
The Othello was a soldier, so inured to "battles, sieges, 
fortunes," "hair-breadth 'scapes," "moving accidents," 
"the flinty and steel couch of war," the command of 
fierce men and the perils of combat that they had 
become the custom of every day, and he was as un- 
mindful of them as of his own strength and poise. 
And, above all, the Othello was a lover reverent of the 




Courtesu of Ercrt Jr(H«» Wciidelt 

JOHN McCULLOUGH AS OTHELLO 



FROM A CUAYOX DUAWIXG 



OTHELLO 285 

object of his love. Nothing could exceed in pathetic 
effect in those cruel scenes of agonized jealousy the 
quick relapses into momentary sweet, blind belief in 
Desdemonas purity: "If she be false, then Heaven 
mocks itself." Finer tragic effect could not be 
imagined than was wrought by McCullough in 
Othello's final utter surrender to the spell of lago's 
treachery, when that fiend exclaims "I'm bound 
to thee forever!" The Italian tragedian Salvini 
expressed the workings of the passion of jealousy, in 
the scene of lago's treacherous beguilement of Othello, 
as I earnestly hope never to see them expressed again, 
but it was the jealousy of an infuriated brute, not that 
of a noble, generous, tender, loving man — which is the 
jealousy of Othello. The English ideal is much the 
better, because the true one. McCullough filled it; 
and in the essential attributes of power, solidity, 
elevation, passion, pathos, manly grace, competent 
vocalism, and fluent continuity of artistic treatment 
his impersonation of Othello ranked among the best 
dramatic achievements of our time. 

The dresses that McCullough wore, one of which 
was decorated on the back with the head of a wild 
beast, were devised for him by his friend Dion 
Boucicault. They were Oriental, not Venetian, and 
therefore they were incorrect. Whatever barbaric 
impulses may be assumed to slumber in the Christian- 



286 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

ized Moor there is no warrant for making him con- 
siderate of the adornment of his person. 



FOREIGN ACTORS.— CHARLES FECHTER. 

Charles Fechter (1824-1879) within his appro- 
priate professional field was a remarkably fine actor, 
but Fechter when performing Shakespeare was such 
an eccentricity as imposed a severe tax on critical 
patience. The Shakespearean parts that he assumed 
were Hamlet, lago, and Othello, and of his perform- 
ances of those parts lago was the best. He failed as 
Othello. He lacked dignity; he was weak, fantastic, 
and unimpressive. In his utterance of the Farewell he 
rose from a chair and declaimed the lines as if deliv- 
ering an address, — ^the bad effect of which proceeding 
was intensified by his sing-song delivery and execrable 
utterance of the English language. The business 
with which he began the last scene should, alone, suf- 
fice to prove his lack of comprehension of the char- 
acter. He went to a mirror and stared into it at his 
countenance and then spoke the words which Othello 
utters relative to the necessity of killing Desde- 
moTia, — 

*'It Is the cause, it is the cause, my soul, — 
Let me not name it to you, you chaste stars! — 
It is the cause — " 



OTHELLO 287 

meaning to indicate that Othello ascribes Desdemona's 
supj)osed infidelity to the fact of her husband's 
black color and racial difference. In the killing of 
Desdemona Fechter's Othello pursued his terrified 
wife to the chamber door and dragged her back to the 
bed, to smother and strangle her. At the supreme 
moment of Othello's desperation, when he said "I 
took by the throat the circumcised dog," he seized 
lago by the throat, forced him to his knees, made a 
show of stabbing that miscreant, and then turned the 
death-blow on liimself. His performance, though it 
deserved no admiration, did not lack admirers. For- 
eign misrepresentations of Shakespeare's characters 
seldom suffer from lack of praise. 

TOMMASO SALVINI. 

The question as to the representation of Othello is 
a simple one: Should the character and experience 
be interpreted before the public as poetry or as prose? 
Discussion of that subject was much stimulated when 
the eminent Italian actor Tommaso Salvini first made 
his appearance in New York, September 16, 1873, 
at the Academy of Music, — acting Othello, and pre-« 
senting an Italian ideal of the part. The excellence 
of Salvini as an executant in the practice of his art 
has not been doubted or denied. He was a great actor. 



288 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

one of the greatest that have ever lived. In the char- 
acters of Conrad, in "La Morte Civile," and Niger, 
in "The Gladiator," he surpassed competition. In 
King Saul, a grand and temble figure as drawn by 
Alfieri from the old Hebrew scripture, he was artis- 
tic perfection. Those parts, and others which could 
be named, appertain to the dramatic literature of his 
native land, and they were wholly within his compre- 
hension. In the great characters of Shakespeare, 
because they do not truly exist in the Italian language, 
he was always and necessarily obstructed by his lack 
of a full understanding of the conceptions of the Eng- 
lish poet. His performance of Othello was tremen- 
dously effective as a piece of dramatic execution, but 
it was radically and ruinously false in ideal. The 
love of Othello for Desdemona is devotional, not sen- 
sual. When they meet at Cyprus he hails her with 
the expressive words, "O my souVs joy!" The key- 
note is struck in that greeting: 

"If it were now to die 
'T were now to be most happy ; for I fear 
My soul hath her content so absolute 
That not another comfort like to this 
Succeeds in unknown fate." 

The exquisite poetry of that speech has not been 
conveyed into the Italian language. Salvini not 



OTHELLO 2S9 

only did not express it but did not even indicate any 
knowledge of it. Already, in the First Act of the play, 
he had made it clearly manifest that his impersonation 
of Othello would be prose and not poetry, for when 
Brabantio, after the dispersal of the Senate, warned 
him, with the words "She has deceived her father and 
may thee," he introduced a denotement of coarseness 
and jealousy, giving a violent start, and looking from 
father to daughter with a quick, flickering, tigerish 
glare, — proceedings obviously unwarranted in a man 
"not easily jealous," and whose very next words are, 
"My life upon her faith!" Prose the impersonation 
was when first revealed and prose it continued to be. 
Salvini caused a startling effect by rushing in and 
beating down with his naked hands the drawn swords 
of the combatants in the night brawl, but in so doing 
he lapsed out of massive poise and lost control of the 
situation. When, in the dismissal of his lieutenant 
from the command, he said, "Cassio, I love thee, but 
never more be officer of mine," he shook his fist in the 
face of that officer, — his dearest friend, who had gone 
a-wooing with him, — and thus he disclosed an innate 
plebeian quality of character completely foreign to 
Othello, as drawn by Shakespeare. As the perform- 
ance proceeded that quality became more and more 
conspicuous. The manifestation of jealousy was ani- 
mal and vulgar, affording no suggestion of the noble 



290 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

mind and loving, trusting heart which should bend 
and break under the conviction of a base betrayal. 
In the furious assault on lago, after the speech of 
Farewell, — which, as spoken by Salvini, was no more 
than a flourish of rhetoric, — he seized that danger- 
ous man, hurled him to the floor, and lifted his 
right foot as if to stamp upon his head, a proceed- 
ing which Shakespeare's lago, being what he is 
and being armed, would endure for about two sec- 
onds. The whole conduct of that frightful scene 
was very striking, artfully planned to cause great 
excitement, and it nearly always produced the effect 
that the actor had intended. He became an incar- 
nation of animal fury, huge, wild, dangerous, and 
horrible, but he was consistently common and bestial. 
The innate grandeur of Shakespeare's Othello, which 
had been measurably suggested in the delivery of the 
speech to the Senate, had completely disappeared. 
In the last scene, when Othello came into Desdemonas 
chamber, and when he should be, for a considerable 
period, self-controlled, deliberate, grandly solemn, 
Salvini was robed in a yellow gown, and he prowled 
to and fro like an enraged tiger about to spring upon 
his prey. Desdemoria attempted to escape from him, 
but Othello seized and dragged her to the bed and 
there killed her, in the most extreme violence of 
snorting fury, after which deed of massacre he circu- 



OTHELLO 291 

lated to and fro about the bed for some moments, 
disregarding the calls of Eiiiilia and seeming demented 
with rage. When lago was brought in, bound, 
Othello snatched a sword from one of the several 
attendants present and delivered upon him such a 
stroke as would have killed him, — ignoring the guid- 
ance of the text, lago's "I bleed, sir, but not killed." 
The sustained, uniform, correct, artistic execution of 
his ideal could not be overlooked, and it could not 
be regarded as other than the admirably ample and 
exact fulfilment of a clearly foraied design. The 
defect was in the design, and it was a fatal defect, 
pervading the entire performance. Salvini's Othello, 
however, has, throughout the principal countries of 
Europe and America, been accepted and extolled 
with prodigious enthusiasm, and, only because of 
the excitement that it diffused thi-oughout the nerv- 
ous systems of the multitude, it possesses a world- 
wide renown. Offered as Shakespeare's Othello, it 
was repugnant equally to 'judgment, scholarship, and 
taste. In fact, it was a desecration of the poetic 
original. 

Salvini's dressing of the part, throughout, was 
Moorish and therefore wrong. His business at the 
end was to cause Othello to kill himself by hacking 
open his throat with a curved knife, — a proceeding 
totally at variance with Shakespeare's text: 



292 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

"I toolc by the throat the circumcis'd dog, 
And smote him — thus !" 

No ingenuity can turn a blow into hacking open the 
throat, nor could a man with his throat chopped 
open utter the last words of Othello: 

"I kiss'd thee, ere I kill'd thee : — no way but this, 
Killing myself to die upon a kiss." 

There are characters and passages in the poetry 
of Shakespeare relative to which a reasonable ground 
exists for difference of opinion. There is no ground 
for difference of opinion as to certain qualities in the 
character of Othello and certain passages in the 
tragedy, — notably the scene at Cyprus and the last 
scene. Shakespeare's Othello is neither sensual, ani- 
mal, nor ferocious: he is manly, magnanimous, fear- 
less, confiding, noble, romantic, and tender, and at the 
culmination of his terrible experience he is an authen- 
tic type of woful grandeur. The last scene of the 
tragedy might well be selected as a test scene. There 
stands the poetic text, and it cannot be evaded. 
Othello has been so ravaged by contending passions 
and by grief that he has twice fallen in epilepsy. 
"He looks gentler than he did." When he enters 
the bed-chamber he comes as the minister of Fate. 
He is absolutely quiet. "It is the cause." The death 



OTHELLO 293 

of Desdemona has been ordained. She is lovely and 
greatly loved, "yet she must die, else she'll betray 
more men." The wretched man is about to extinguish 
the light burning in the chamber but pausing a 
moment, gazes at his beautiful wife, quiescent in 
slumber, and doing so murmurs his thought in words 
of solemn beauty: 

"If I quench thee, thou flaming minister, 
I can again thy former light restore, 
Should I repent me: — but once put out thy light, 
Thou cunning'st pattern of excelling nature, 
I know not where is that Promethean heat 
Which can thy light relume. When I have pluck'd the rose 
I cannot give it vital growth again, 
It needs must wither." 

Three times he kisses the sleeping Desdemo7ia, but 
so gently that she knows it not and does not waken. 
The exquisite loveliness and the innocence of his wife, 
in which he has believed, and a dreadful wickedness of 
her conduct which he has been beguiled to credit, unite 
to overwhelm him, and he weeps: 

*'But they are cruel tears : this sorrow 's heavenly ; 
It strikes where it doth love." 

Here is no fury, no tigerish convulsion. It is the 
soul that speaks. "Have you prayed to-night?" he 
asks, when at length the poor child has wakened. "I 



294 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

would not kill thy unprepared spirit." It is not until, 
as he believes, she utters a falsehood, even in the 
presence of death, vt^hen he has bade her make her 
peace with Heaven, that Othello's wildness momentarily 
returns upon him: 

"Thou dost stone my heart. 
And mak'st me call what I intend to do 
A murder, which I thought a sacrifice." 

And even in the very commission of the dreadful 
deed there is mercy: "I would not have thee linger 
in thy pain." The student who can find in that awful 
and pathetic scene any warrant for such acting as 
Salvini and various other foreigners have provided 
for its illustration must be peculiar in the faculty of 
discernment. 

ERNESTO ROSSI. 

The advent on the American stage of the dis- 
tinguished Italian actor Ernesto Rossi (1829-1896), 
occurred at Booth's Theatre, New York, October 31, 
1881, and was effected in Othello. The Italian ideal 
of the part had been made known by his illustrious 
predecessor, Salvini, and it was known to be com- 
pletely wrong. Rossi's performance only served to 
accentuate its deformity. His Othello was a common 
man, at first intoxicated by sensual passion and after- 




From a photograph by Lock and miitflehl, London 

TOMMASO SALVINI AS OTHELLO 



OTHELLO 295 

ward infuriated by demoniac jealousy. In person 
the actor was large and stout, having a round face, 
regular features, dark eyes, and a strong, resonant 
voice, neither melodious nor very flexible, but, in its 
hoarse, broken tones, effectively expressive of painful 
emotion. As an actor he was authoritative, distinct, 
definite, continuously animated, profoundly earnest, 
and so entirely masterful of the instrumentalities of 
his art as to create the effect of complete spontaneity. 
His acting was especially competent and effective in 
moments of half-crazed perplexity, — the oscillation 
between confident belief and distracting doubt, — when> 
as at the summit of the scene of lago's poisonous 
distillment, it seemed that neither body nor mind 
could endure the strain of conflicting passions, and 
also in the frenzy that culminates in the epileptic 
trance. The situations thus indicated present no 
obscurity to an able and experienced actor. The 
difficulty is to make apparently actual a clear, rounded, 
finished, true ideal of Shakespeare's conception. 
Rossi's delivery of Othello's speech to the Senate, 
while accompanied by much expressive and commend- 
able gesture, was devoid equally of simplicity and 
dignity, — ^the speaker destroying illusion by turning 
his back upon the Senators and addressing the audi- 
ence. The greeting to Desdemona at Cyprus was 
expressed in a spirit of gloating, uxorious animal- 



296 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

ism, inconsistent equall}^ with the character and the 
situation. The delivery of the rebuke to Cassio was 
exasperated, and neither dignified nor sorrowful, — 
the words "Cassio, I love you" causing no effect. The 
demeanor and gesture, when Othello, becoming sur- 
prised and a little bewildered by lago's innuendoes, 
exclaims "Thou dost mean something," signified only 
sneaking suspicion. The pathetic Farewell was a 
burst of hysterical garrulity. The denunciation of 
lago, — who, yelling with fear, had been hurled to the 
floor, Rossi, like Salvini, raising his foot over the 
Ancient's head as though about to stamp out his 
brains, — was snarled forth with merely blatant vehe- 
mence. The killing of Desdemona was effected 
with hideous brutality, and in the act of suicide 
Othello was made to emit spasmodic gurgling sounds, 
as of a person choked by blood. The several facts, 
which, in treating this subject, cannot be over-empha- 
sized, that, in Shakespeare's tragedy, Othello is a 
poetic creation, a consummate type of nobility and 
magnanimity; that his love for Desdemona, while 
humanly passionate, is awed in the presence of its 
idolized object and exalted by its ecstasy, and that 
the kilhng of his wife is a sacrifice, not a butcherj^ 
were not comprehended by Rossi, any more than they 
had been by Salvini, and his embodiment, — unredeemed 
by such personal magnetism and such colossal individ- 



OTHELLO 297 

uality as those of his predecessor, — ^was radically wrong 
and supremely repulsive. 



ERMETE NOVELLI. 

Ermete Novelli presented himself in the guise of 
Othello, for the first time on the New York Stage, 
on March 25, 1907, and, while manifesting his unques- 
tionable ability, succeeded only in misrepresenting 
the part and again proving what had been proved 
already, — that the Italian ideal of it is radically 
false to Shakespeare and obnoxious to good judgment 
and good taste. As King Louis, as Corado, and as 
Geronte, in "The Beneficent Bear," Novelli showed 
himself to be an excellent comedian, but the endeavors 
that he made in tragedies of Shakespeare evinced no 
decisive tragic capability. His ideal of Othello was 
seen to be substantially identical with that which 
had been revealed by Salvini and Rossi, while his 
mechanism was, in every way, inferior to that of both 
his compatriots. He looked like a buck Negro, and when 
rushing wildly to and fro, glaring backward over his 
shoulder, as he did almost continuously in the crucial 
scene in the Third Act, he seemed like an infuriated 
gorilla. By enthusiastic admirers (for always "The 
present eye praises the present object") Novelli was 
hailed as another Salvini, but in fact he no more resem- 



298 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

bled that great actor, who, among other merits, possessed 
repose, than a powder-mill resembles a volcano. His 
stage business was even more unsuitable than that of 
his predecessors. After using lago as a floor-mop, — 
according to the Italian stage custom, — he indicated a 
quick revulsion of feeling and assisted his officer to 
rise. Othello respects and trusts lago, being duped 
by that scoundrel's hypocrisy, insidious pretence of 
candor, and specious assumption of loving friendship, 
yet the demeanor of Novelli's Othello toward lago 
was, almost invariably, the careless, contemptuous 
demeanor of an arrogant master toward a servile 
lackey. There is a moment in the play when Othello 
says that his blood begins his safer guides to rule: 
in Novelli's performance Othello's blood began that 
operation at the first and continued it almost inces- 
santly till the end, — his habitual behavior being that 
of an irritated bully. On Roderigo, whenever he 
beheld that silly dupe, he glowered like an angry 
mastiff. He introduced a grimacing pantomime 
signifying to Desdemona, who coincidentally indicated 
solicitude lest Othello might speak harshly to her sire, 
that he could not possibly be disrespectful toward that 
venerable person. In the Senate Scene he kept his 
back turned upon his audience much of the time, 
so that his voice could not always be distinctly heard 
nor his face be seen, but when addressing the Sena- 



OTHELLO 299 

tors (who were arranged across the back of the 
stage from left to right centre) he occupied the 
middle of the scene, turned his back upon the "potent, 
grave, and reverend signiors," and apostrophized the 
audience. Toward Brabantio, after the old and 
broken father had spoken his warning, "Look to her, 
Moor," his attitude became that of wrath and menace; 
he rushed after him to the door of the chamber, bawl- 
ing the words, "My life upon her faith," — words 
that should be spoken with the dignified composure 
and sweetness of happy, confident love. When he 
came upon the scene of the brawl at Cyprus he rushed 
in looking like a Negro, arrayed in the military uni- 
form of a Zouave, wildly waving a naked simitar and 
whirling 'round between the combatants with an aspect 
of fury. He omitted "Silence that dreadful bell," 
and when he said "Cassio, I love thee, but never- 
more be officer of mine" he kept his face turned from 
the audience and he twiddled a forefinger of his right 
hand under the nose of his "loved" friend, and after 
Desdemonas entrance he shook his fist in Cassio's 
face. When uttering the heart-broken Farewell he 
seized a large, high-backed chair, and, clasping both 
hands on one corner of its back, bent his body 
forward and to the right, and poured out all but 
the last three or four lines of that agonizing speech in 
a stream of prosy colloquialism, and then ran 



300 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

*'up-stage" and spouted the conclusion to the back 
drop. In the Oath Scene, after "I here engage my 
words," his expedient was to rise half-way and then 
sink back, at lago's "Do not rise yet," and remain, 
with his hands lifted to his face and joined as 
if in prayer, while lago, standing over him, 
delivered the impious apostrophe "Witness, you 
ever-burning lights." In the last scene he came on, 
carrying a huge silver lamp, lighted — the distinctly 
specified requirement being that Desdemona shall be 
asleep, in her bed, with a light burning in the room. 
His grunting and growling aroused Desdemona, 
who left the bed and came down the stage, to act 
the scene with him in front, where, finally, he seized 
her around the throat, with both hands, dragged her 
across the whole depth of the stage, in a violent 
struggle, threw her upon the bed, springing upon 
her and dropping the bed-curtain; whereon ensued a 
vocal emission of horrible snarls, gasps, growls, and 
gurgles, degrading that deed of "sacrifice" to a 
beastly Bill Sikes murder of Nancy. When he killed 
himself he cut his throat, as Salvini had done, and 
died, rolling down steps in front of the bed. 

Novelli's dressing of Othello was Moorish, that 
fact giving decisive proof of either ignorance or dis- 
regard of the correct dressing of the part. Othello 
has become a Christian and he is a general in the ser- 



OTHELLO 301 

vice of the state of Venice. The studious commenta- 
tor Charles Knight remarks that Othello's marriage 
to a Christian lady is, in itself, conclusive proof that 
he must have ceased to be a Mohammedan. The 
testimony of lago is explicit on this point: 

"To win the Moor — were 't to renounce his baptism. 
All seals and symbols of redeemed sin — 
His soul is so enfetter'd," etc. 

And Othello himself says (Act IL, Sc. 3) : 

"Are we turned Turks, and to ourselves do that 
Which Heaven hath forbid the Ottomites? 
For Christian shame, put by this barbarous brawl." 

The correct dress for Othello is that of a general 
in the service of the Venetian Kepublic. It is 
recorded by Paulus Jovius that the Venetian generals 
were always foreigners, selected for that office "lest 
any of their own countrymen [Venetians] might be 
puffed up with pride and grow too ambitious." On 
the day of his election to office the Venetian general 
assumed a distinctive dress: a full gown of crimson 
velvet, with loose sleeves, over which was worn a 
mantle of cloth of gold, buttoned upon the right 
shoulder with massy gold buttons; a cap of crimson 
leather; and a silver baton, ensigned with the lion 
of St. Mark. In action he would wear full armor 



302 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

of the period (1750), which was much the same over 
all Christian Europe. Such is the information sup- 
plied by Planche, one of the best authorities extant 
on costume. 

As Othello, Novelli arrayed himself in the remark- 
able garments here specified. First dress: trousers 
of dark blue or black, with white embroidery about 
the ankles: a light, parti-colored vest, heavily embroid- 
ered with gold: a sash of parti-colored silk, twisted 
into a heavy roll, around the waist: a richly jewelled 
dagger, thrust into the middle of the sash; a surcoat, 
the ground color of which was purple, incrusted with 
gold, while on the back, across the shoulders and 
reaching almost to the waist, was gold embroidery; 
a red turban, embroidered with gold, the centre and 
top of the turban being white; and a spray-like plume 
of feathers, rising from the turban. Second dress 
(at Cyprus) : A chain-mail tunic and mail covering 
for the legs: a breastplate of gleaming steel, with a 
large gold spike in the centre of it: A red under-dress 
embroidered with black, — which he wore throughout 
the rest of the play: that dress reached from his neck 
to his ankles; the cuffs of it were parti-colored silk, 
hanging from each wrist about three inches: it was 
moderately close-fitting on the body, loose and baggy 
from the waist to the knees, close-fitting from the 
knees to the ankles (the color of his under-dress was, 



OTHELLO 303 

when Novelli made his second tour of the United 
States, changed to blue) : a parti-colored scarf, round 
the waist, in a roll: a white cloak, heavy with gold 
embroidery; a steel helmet, with a Moorish parti- 
colored turban round it, and a plume of spray-like 
feathers in its front; a huge "two-handed" sword, 
which he carried unsheathed : the top of his helmet was 
ornamented with a gold crescent — the emblem of the 
Moslem faith, which Othello has abjured, and like- 
wise the distinctive blazon of the Turk, against 
whom he is, at the time, in arms! 

Novelli was not satisfied to present his perversions 
of Shakespeare (he appeared as King Lear, Shylock, 
Hamlet, Petruchio, Othello, and Macbeth) and allow 
them to stand for what they were. He deemed it 
necessary and judicious to publish instructions as to 
what actors and acting should be, and he appeared 
in print to justify his performance of Othello in the 
Italian alteration of the play. If his performance 
had left any doubt as to his complete misunderstand- 
ing of Othello his published remarks would have 
removed it, while also disclosing radical defect in 
his artistic principles and method. 

"Never do I upon the stage," — so he wrote, — 
"anything I have not seen done, in like circumstances, 
in real life. I hold the mirror up to nature, which is 
truth, which is realism." Exactly: it is reahsm, while 



304 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

Acting is Dramatic Art. "The blood leaped from 
his gashed neck," continued Novelli, describing an 
act of suicide in a public place, "like a fountain of wine. 
He held the razor — thus: and he bent forward — so. 
I shoulder (sic) my way to the front of the crowd, 
and, as I do it, I hear the dying man give a gurgle in 
the throat — a gurgle like this — s-s-s-r-r-r-r-R-R-r ! 
And then I say: ^That is the way! Now I know how 
the Moor died. At last I can play the part!' And 
that night I begin rehearsal of 'Othello.' " 

What relation does a street-suicide committed by an 
Italian barber who cuts his throat with a razor bear to 
the tragedy of "Othello"? "Never do I upon the stage 
anything I have not seen done, in like circumstances^ 
in real life," was Novelli's declaration, and he killed 
Othello bj^ causing him to cut his throat according to 
the model he described. What likeness exists in the 
circumstances of the two deaths? And what must be 
the mental calibre of an actor who cannot "play the 
part" of Othello until he has looked on the hideous 
and vulgar spectacle of an actual suicide; who waits 
to begin rehearsals of "Othello" until he has seen a 
death that he thinks can appropriately be copied into 
that play, — two minutes before it ends! "In acting," 
he added, "the days of artifice have gone; the day 
of truth has dawned." Sublime discovery! Benefi- 
cent impartment! But, who were the practitioners of 



OTHELLO 305 

"artifice" on the benighted English-speaking Stage 
that, happily, have passed away? Were they, per- 
haps, Garrick, Barry, Henderson, Kean, Booth, 
Macready, Phelps, Forrest, Brooke, Davenport, 
Edwin Booth, McCullough, Barrett, Wallack, Bur- 
ton, Finn, Warren, Gilbert, Irving, Mansfield? 
"With Shakespeare," said Novelli, "I did only some 
cutting which was necessary to make him, for the 
first time, popular in Italy." That claim indicated 
the modest disposition of its maker, and, incidentally, 
of course, rectified serious error. An impression had 
long prevailed that, while Ermete Novelli was still 
a youth, his illustrious leader, Salvini, however 
inadequate his performances may have been to the 
requirements of English ideal, had, at least, accom- 
plished something by way of making the Shakespeare 
alterations "popular" in Italy. On the whole, 
Novelli's printed deliverance respecting Othello 
afforded an admonitory example of the injury which 
proceeds from a hurtful custom, prevalent among 
actors, of pubhshing views about their performances 
and about the art of which they are ministers. Acting 
which requires elucidation by diagrams and foot-notes 
by the performer is not good acting. Foreign 
actors, in particular, visiting America, show them- 
selves to signal disadvantage, often creating a harm- 
ful impression of ill-breeding, when they indulge in 



306 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

that form of literary industry. There are persons, 
indeed, considerable in number, who admire all for- 
eign forms of art only because they are foreign, and 
who accept with meek and humble provincial gratitude 
the patronizing precepts of foreign performers; but 
the American community, as a whole, naturally 
regards as an impertinence the top-lofty attitude 
of foreign visitors to the American Stage who assume 
to dispense instruction as to the function of dramatic 
art and the meaning of English dramatic literature. 
It should be remarked, furthermore, that the writ- 
ings of those peripatetic players are, in general, not 
only impertinent but ridiculous. Some of the views 
promulgated by foreign actors and some of the per- 
formances exhibited by them would speedily exile any 
English-speaking actor to the obscurity of the back- 
woods. 

AN OFFENSIVE THEORY. 

The tragedy of "Othello" has not escaped indignity 
in print. One peculiarly offensive view of the subject, 
and one that is not less absurd than it is offensive, 
was set forth in a treatise on "The System of Shake- 
speare's Dramas," by D. J. Snider, and, strange to 
say, it has not only been tolerated but sometimes 
even approved. That view maintains that jealousy 
between Othello and Desdemona must necessarily 




From a photograph 

ERMETE NOVELLI AS OTHELLO 



OTHELLO 307 

occur because of the racial difference between them 
(which is to look at the subject through the eyes of 
lago), and furthermore that Othello, in the poet's 
scheme, must be assumed to have committed adulteiy 
with Emilia, the wife of lago, and for that reason, 
being aware of the possible fact of infidelity in the 
married state, is the more credulous of lago's insinua- 
tions and affirmations relative to unchastity on the 
part of Desdemona. No extravagance of misunder- 
standing could be more monstrous. Desdemona is 
never jealous. The last words that fall from her 
lips as she dies, — words spoken in order to shield 
Othello, — ascribe her death to her own hand, 
and express absolute fidelity of love to her hus- 
band: "Commend me to my kind lord." Othello's 
jealousy is no ethnological consequence but a passion 
artfully inspired by the hellish ingenuity of an intel- 
lectual monster. What except folly could suppose 
that Othello, if he had been guilty of debauching 
lago's wife, would deliberately and needlessly select 
lago as the guardian of his bride, and appoint Emilia, 
— his paramour, as in the case assumed, she would 
be, — as his bride's special attendant and companion? 

"Honest lago. 
My Desdemona must I leave to thee: 
I prithee let thy wife attend upon her 
And bring them after in the best advantage." 



308 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

And what except ignorance of human nature could 
believe that, under the circumstances which would 
exist, consequent on a criminal intimacy between 
Othello and Emilia, an affectionate friendship could 
ensue between Emilia and Desdemona, — as it does 
ensue, — causing Emilia to sei-ve Desdemona implicitly, 
to defy Othello, to oppose and denounce lago, and to 
endanger and lose her life by proclaiming Desde- 
mona s innocence and exposing lago's guilt? 

"Moor, she was chaste: she lov'd thee, cruel Moor: 
So come my soul to bliss as I speak true, 
So speaking as I think, I die — I die." 

To allege \h2L\ "lago's suspicion of Othello is true" 
(sic, meaning justified), only because I ago entertains 
it, is to crown folly with nonsense. lago is, by 
nature, an utterly selfish man, and jealous as well as 
licentious and envious. It is, first of all, his knowl- 
edge of himself which has assured him that "trifles, 
light as air, are, to the jealous, confirmation strong 
as proofs of holy writ." He is jealous of all good- 
ness and all merit in other persons, and his percep- 
tion of goodness and merit is immediate, exact, and 
profound: he perceives them and he hates them. His 
suspicion of Othello is the suspicion of an evil mind, 
conscious of its evil. His surmise as to the likelihood 



OTHELLO 309 

of Cassio's love for Desdemona proceeds from the 
same fountain of turpitude in himself. He abhors 
both those men, and he will ruin them if he can. 
When he says, of Cassio, "there is a daily beauty in 
his life that makes me ugly," he expresses his char- 
acteristic animosity toward everything in the world 
which he sees and knows to be better than himself. 
Motive for lago's malignity is not more obscure than 
that of the waiy, deadly rattlesnake, that strikes 
whatever obtrudes on him, because it is his nature to 
envenom and kill. There are precisely such men and 
women in the world. Furthermore, belief in the 
possible criminal conduct of other persons operates 
on the mind of lago exactly as positive knowledge 
would operate. No man in actual life and no 
man depicted in fiction ever knew and understood 
himself more thoroughly, or could describe himself 
more exactly, than that miscreant does in Shake- 
speare's page, and of his views relative to Othello and 
Emilia and Cassio and Desdemona he makes, in 
soliloquy, a definite exposition, together with the 
reasons for them, an exposition which it is difficult 
to understand how any examiner can so distort as to 
make them in any degree substantiatory of Snider's 
preposterous doctrine. 



310 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

VARIOUS MENTION. 

Consideration of the different ideals of Othello 
which have been proclaimed and the different methods 
of acting the part which have been illustrated on the 
stage could be much prolonged, but not to instructive 
purpose. Many actors of Othello whom I have seen, 
and many of whose endeavors in the character I have 
read, contributed practically nothing more than pro- 
fessional skill in the exposition of ideals and methods 
originated for them by others. Reputable, sometimes 
admirable, performances of the part, in Great Britain 
and America, have been given by Thomas Ryder, 
Alexander Pope, George Bennett, James Robert 
Anderson, John Ryder, Charles Dillon, Herman 
Vezin, Wilson Barrett, Wyzeman Marshall, James 
Booth Roberts, Charles Barron, Louis Aldrich, 
Lawrence Barrett, Louis James, Frederick Warde, 
Barton Hill, George Edgar, and Robert D. 
MacLean. 

Mention should be made, as of a curiosity, of Ira 
Aldridge (1804-1867), a Negro, whose performance 
of Othello was accepted and admired b};^ considerable 
audiences, and bj?- persons of critical pretension, in 
Great Britain and in Germany, 1826, 1833, 1852. 
Accounts of the life of that performer are various 
and dubious. One narrative designates him "the 



OTHELLO 311 

African Roscius" and states that he was descended 
from "Princes of Senegal." I have heard that in 
boyhood he was employed at the Chatham Garden, 
New York, as a dresser, attendant on Henry Wallack. 
His first appearance on the stage appears to have 
been made in London, at the Royalty Theatre. 
Approval of his acting was ascribed to Edmund Kean 
and also to the popular actress Eliza O'Neill (Lady 
Wrixon Becher). He seems to have been a man of 
talent, and probably his performance of Othello 
attracted particular attention and was consid- 
ered the more remarkable because of his being a 
Negro. He was born in Maryland, and he died in 
Poland. 

The best, indeed the only important, impersona- 
tion of Othello recently shown (1911) on the Ameri- 
can Stage was that given by Robert Bruce Mantell. 
It was pervaded by the right spirit, — that of martial 
authority, innate dignity, simplicity of mind, and a 
sweet, confiding magnanimity, — and it possessed the 
artistic beauties of symmetrical form and fluent 
expression. The style of Robert Mantell was formed 
by close study and severe practice, on the English 
provincial stage, at a time when the influence of "the 
old school of actors," as it is customarily called, — an 
influence which compelled strenuous endeavor, — had 
not perished. Like Henry Irving, he derived lasting 



312 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

benefit from professional association with Charles 
Mathews, a performer who, though he did not advent- 
ure in tragedy, was a master of the art of dramatic 
expression. As Othello Mantell struck the true note 
of pathos in a heart-breaking show of the terrible 
struggle between love and doubt in a generous mind 
and in depicting the fanatical, almost maniacal, pre- 
possession of a deceived, bewildered, cruelly afflicted 
man, intent to achieve justice by inflicting death. His 
expression of Othello's frenzy when deluded by lago 
was ample and terrible, and his management of the 
whole closing scene was marked by a controlling sense 
of the solemnity, the terror, the pathos, and the 
appalling misery which are its dramatic constituents- 
He used the text as arranged in Edwin Booth's 
"Prompt Book," slightly modified, and he followed, 
as to business, in the traditional path. 



lAGO. 

The name of the first performer of lago is unknown. 
The name first associated with the part in theatrical 
annals is that of John Tajdor. Mention is made 
by Halliwell-PliilHpps of a legend that lago, when 
first acted, was assumed by "a comedian," and that 
Shakespeare "adapted some of the speeches to the 
peculiar talents of the actor." In Glidon's "Reflec- 



OTHELLO 313 

tions" (1694) there is an intimation that "Shake- 
speare put several words and expressions into his 
part, not so agreeable to his character, to make the 
audience laugh." The legend has no adequate ground 
and the intimation is absurd. Enough is known of 
the actors of Shakespeare's time to w^arrant the belief 
that many of them were competent to perform in both 
serious and comic parts. The humor of lago is some- 
times affectedly jocular and sometimes sardonic. No 
man in the whole wide range of dramatic literature 
expresses himself in a manner more absolutely con- 
sistent with his character than lago does. His levity of 
speech is as genuine as his villany of conduct. There 
was not, and could not have been, need of insertion of 
any words to cause laughter. The chronicle of early 
representatives of the part includes, beside Gibber, 

Macklin, and Henderson, already mentioned, 

Clun; Michael Mohun, 1668; John Verbruggen, 
1706-07; Lacy Ryan, 1722; John Mills, 1738; David 
Garrick, 1750; William Havard, 1761; Richard 

Sparks, 1762; Sowdon, 1769; John Palmer, 

1773; Robert Bensley, 1774; Thomas Ryder, 1787; 
George Frederick Cooke, 1797; Edmund Kean, 1815; 
Junius Brutus Booth, and Thomas Abthorpe Cooper. 
Kean, according to some, if not all, contemporary 
testimony, was as fine in lago as in Othello. Haz- 
litt declared Kean's lago to have been the most 



314 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

thoroughly sustained of all his performances: other 
first-hand testimony has ascribed that superiority to 
his performance of Sir Edward Mortimer, in "The 
Iron Chest." It does not seem surprising, in view 
of the contrast between the two characters, that a 
superb actor should succeed in causing even a stronger 
effect with lago than with Othello, for the reason 
that, in point of propulsion, — a continuity of doing 
something, — lago is the better part. lago acts: 
Othello is, to a great extent, acted upon. Were it 
not that lago's proceedings keep Othello continuously 
before the "mind's eye" lago might be made to 
absorb all attention. Kean, according to Hazlitt, 
whose accounts of his acting are detailed and specific, 
made lago, throughout, "an excellent good fellow and 
lively bottle companion," "a pattern of comic gayety 
and good-humor," — ^not, however, sufficiently grave 
to satisfy the judgment of that observer, who pointed 
out, as a radical distinction between King Richard 
the Third and lago, that the former is "a princely 
villain" who misuses his power, in contempt of man- 
kind, and should be represented in "the regal jollity 
and reeling triumph of success," while the latter is 
"an adventurer in mischief" who cannot assume 
superiority as if he were entitled to it. 

Nearer to the present time, among the many actors 
who have performed as lago, a few who gained dis- 



OTHELLO 315 

tinction in the part were James Robert Anderson, 
John Henry Barnes, George Bennett, Gustavus 
Vaughan Brooke, William Creswick, Leigh JNIurray, 
and Samuel Phelps, in Great Britain, and Edwin 
Adams, Lawrence Barrett, John McCullough, Barton 
Hill, WiUiam E. Sheridan, George Jamieson, Charles 
R. Pope, James William Wallack, Jr., and Frederick 
Warde, in America. 



TIME AND "DOUBLE TIME." 

Inquiry as to the Duration of Time in the action 
of "Othello" opens a wide field of speculation and 
enjoyment to those numerous investigators who delight 
in the exposure of discrepancy in the mechanism of 
Shakespeare's plays, and to them it should especially 
be commended. Not indeed because it has been 
neglected, — for more than once ingenious commen- 
tary has riddled the structure of "Othello" by present- 
ment of incongi'uity between its events and the time 
of their occurrence, — but because it presents such 
ample opportunity of floundering in needless and 
useless argument. There, for example, is the won- 
derful "double time" theory, propounded by Pro- 
fessor Wilson, — a doctrine which even the saving 
humor of the sagacious and gentle Fumess did not 
prompt him to reject, — which ^schylus is thought 



316 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

to have known and sanctioned, and which, as applied 
to "Othello," produces a muddle, perspicuous only 
to the elect. "If we find those effects in their 
dramas," says Furness, — meaning the dramas of 
^schylus and Shakespeare, — "their hands put them 
there, and to imagine that we can see them and 
that the mighty poets themselves did not, is 
to usurp a position which I can scarcely conceive 
of any one as willing to occupy." It may be pre- 
sumptuous to believe, but I cannot escape the con- 
viction, that enthusiasm, especially when it has a 
theory to sustain, habitually discovers, in the works 
of "the mighty poets," many things of which they 
would have been astonished to hear. Pope has told 
us that 

" Whoever thinks a faultless piece to see 

Thinks what ne'er was, nor is, nor e'er shall be " ; 

and, after many years of Shakespeare study, inclusive 
of much diligent reading of learned, ingenious, often 
instructive, sometimes sophistical commentary on the 
subject, and after making more than one contribution 
to the medley of Time Analysis, I humbly resign the 
task of trying to harmonize flat contradictions and 
convert into intended beauties the obvious faults in 
Shakespeare's plays. I remember the evidence which 
proves that he often built on the basis of old materials; 



OTHELLO 317 

that there is such a thing as poetic license, of which, 
manifestly, he took advantage; that, although it was 
his custom to "strike the second heat upon the Muse's 
anvil," he wrote for the stage, and, considering the 
qualitj^ and number of his plays, must have written 
very rapidly; and I reach the comforting conclusion 
that it is rational and right to accept for what they 
are the obvious imperfections in the literature with 
which he enriched the world, — a literature which, 
whatever be its faults, is supremely beautiful. The 
great plaj^s of Shakespeare, written by a man who 
was not onljT^ a dramatic poet but an actor and a 
theatrical manager, are adequate to eveiy practical 
requirement of the stage — and to a great deal more! — '■ 
and of those great plays "Othello," dramatically the 
best, requires no justification by wire-woven theory 
or hair-splitting argument. 

THE POWER OF THE PLAY. 

In the pathos of its picture of human life, in the 
terror which it causes, the pity which it inspires, 
and the consequent chastening influence which it 
exerts "Othello" is only a little less than "King 
Lear," and thus only a little lower than the highest. 
The difference is in degree. Lear sacrifices himself 
before he is sacrificed by his children. Othello is 



318 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

despoiled and ruined by his enemy. The old King 
comes a little nearer to the heart, therefore, and the 
spectacle of his anguish is somewhat more pitiably 
desolate, for that reason. In the tears which we shed 
over that venerable ruin there is a blind submission to 
fate, a dazed sense of the weakness of man when at 
strife with nature, an infinite sorrow for the utter 
helplessness of the human race. Our gi'ief is so great 
that it drowns our anger, and Regan, Goneril, and 
Edmund are forgotten, with the rest of the lumber 
of the commonplace world. The spectacle of Othello's 
misery may be equally agonizing, but the emotion it 
inspires is not as ineffably piteous. In our tears for 
him there is fire — the fire of an immitigable rage 
against the diabolical intellect that has destroyed him. 
He represents magnanimous virtue, simple, stalwart 
goodness, leonine power, commingled with the trustful 
candor of innocent childhood. He has not outlived 
his time nor the sunshine. He is not yet, in any sense, 
due to death. There may be autumnal tints in the 
foliage of his garden, but it is not amiss that he 
should gather the ripe fruits of life, love, and happi- 
ness, and we feel that he ought to possess them. When, 
therefore, his grandeur is broken by the adverse will 
of a malignant genius, — against which, because of his 
confiding nature, he is powerless and defenceless, — 
our rage strikes hands with our sorrow, and the tide 



OTHELLO 319 

of our hate rises equally with the tide of our love. 
But, though in the scale of emotion a little lower 
than the highest, these feelings are high, grand, 
sacred, and our minds resent the least approach toward 
trifling with sensibilities so acute and experiences so 
vital and tragic. Just as no soul that really feels will 
endure a light mention of the names of the beloved 
dead, so no soul that really feels will endure a vain, 
casual meddling with those immortal ideals in which 
Shakespeare has expressed the sum of human great- 
ness and human misery. 



V. 

HAMLET. 

" There is an order 
Of mortals on the earth, who do become 
Old in their youth, and die ere middle age. 
Without the violence of warlike death; 
Some perishing of pleasure — some of study — 
Some worn with toil, some of mere weariness, — 
(Some of disease — and some vnsanity — 
And some of withered, or of broken hearts; 
For this last is a malady which slays 
More than are numbered in the lists of Fate, 
Taking all shapes, and beari/ng many names." 

Byeon. 

The tragedy of "Hamlet," current on the stage for 
more than three centuries, has been acted thousands 
of times, and scores of actors have performed as the 
Prince of Denmark. Almost every actor who loves 
his profession wishes to act the Prince, and it is 
natural that he should wish to do so, the character 
being irresistibly attractive. Attributes fascinating 
to the imagination are combined in Hamlet, and, 
furthermore, — a fact which intensifies the inherent 
fascination, — ^he is the central figure in a romantic 
story which involves the awful mystery and subhmity 

820 



HAMLET 321 

of preternatural environment. The list of actors who 
have played the part, if it were possible to obtain 
a complete one, would be prodigious; even an incom- 
plete one would be very long, and it would include 
many forgotten names, with, of course, a few that 
still retain some lustre of traditional renown. Authen- 
tic intimation, sometimes becoming description, of the 
manner in which Hamlet was dressed and acted by 
eminent actors of the past did not begin to glide into 
contemporary records until about the end of the 
seventeenth century, and until a recent time it 
remained meagre. 



BRITISH STAGE.— THOMAS BETTERTON. 

The first representative of Hamlet was Richard 
Burbage, concerning whose performance no specific 
information has been found. The part was also acted 
in Shakespeare's lifetime by Joseph Taylor, and it 
is known that Shakespeare personally imparted to 
Taylor his views of the manner in which it ought to 
be played, that Taylor performed it "incomparably 
well," and that Sir William Davenant, who had 
seen Taylor's performance, described it to Thomas 
Betterton. 

The performance of it by Betterton, which is, to 
some extent, specifically depicted by Colley Gibber, 



322 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

provided the traditional method of acting it, — a 
method which, more or less diversified, has survived to 
the present day. Betterton's performance, in 1661, 
appears to have been illumined by transcendent 
genius. One remark about it indicates its excel- 
lence: "When I acted the Ghost with Betterton," 
said Barton Booth, "instead of my awing him, he 
terrified me: but divinity hung round that man." 
Betterton was twenty-six years old when he first 
played Hamlet, but he seems to have made the part 
his own at once, and all his life he was peerless in it. 
At about the age of seventy he was still able to play 
it, and even then his performance elicited cordial com- 
mendation. Steele, in "The Tatler," praised it, signi- 
fying that the aged actor had not lost his vigor, but 
appeared as "a young man of great expectation, 
vivacity, and enterprise." The dress of the Piince, 
as presented by Betterton, according to an authentic 
portrait which hangs in the Garrick Club, London, 
was almost ecclesiastical, particularly in the detail of 
a conspicuous white neckcloth. One account of that 
actor's appearance mentions as parts of his Hamlet 
attire a cocked hat, shoulder-knots, and a full- 
bottomed wig, trappings obviously and ludicrously 
inappropriate to the character: but the dress was that 
of Betterton's period and the audience was accus- 
tomed to it. 



HAMLET 323 

COSTUME. 

Correct dressing on the stage, whether historic or 
gesthetic, came into vogue by slow degrees. It has 
not been customary, and it is not now, to modify 
the dress of HaiRlet, in the course of a representation 
of the play, so as to make it entirely consistent 
with the varying conditions of the man portrayed 
in Shakespeare's text. Prior to the time when 
Hamlet first enters he has not seen or heard of 
the apparition of his murdered father. Ophelia, who 
subsequently describes the Prince's appearance and 
attire, is not present in his first scene. In that 
scene he should be clothed in raiment befitting his 
rank and princely condition. He wears black, whereas 
the King, the Queen, and the courtiers have discarded 
mourning robes; but, although a settled melancholy 
possesses him, his apparel should not be dishevelled nor 
his person unkempt nor his visage distraught. The 
final shock — the vision and impartment of the Ghost 
— is yet to come. The unhappy man, indeed, is weary 
of life and has contemplated suicide, but his mental 
balance has not yet been vitally disordered. It is 
not till after the awe and terror of the midnisrht 
encounter with the Ghost that he breaks down alto- 
gether, and comes before Ophelia, 



324 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

" With a look so piteous in purport, 
As if he had been loosed out of hell, 
To speak of horrors." 

From that time his aspect, naturally, would be that of 
a man whom anguish, corroding the heart and dis- 
tracting the mind, has made heedless of dress and 
appearance, except in as far as innate, habitual delicacy- 
would involuntarily prompt care of the person. He 
suffers acutely and continuously. He is incarnate 
misery. Ophelias description of him, — 

" With his doublet all unbrac'd ; 
No hat upon his head; his stockings foul'd, 
Ungarter'd, and down-gyved to his ankle; 
Pale as his shirt; his knees knocking each other," — 

suits with that condition. She, with cause, believes 
him to be mad, and later she laments to behold 

" That noble and most sovereign reason, 
Like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh." 

The general custom of the stage, however, has been 
to present Hamlet, throughout every scene of the 
tragedy, as "the glass of fashion and the mould of 
form." The reason for that custom is obvious: if 
he were presented as continuously in the condition 
described hy Ophelia he would be, to the general 
public, less an object of sympathy. A spectacle of 



HAMLET 325 

abject misery becomes tedious to the multitude. The 
wretched are soon forsaken. 

INSANITY OF HAMLET. 

Actors habituated to deep study and to thought 
would naturally, in their dressing and acting of Ham- 
let^ be influenced by the conclusions they reach relative 
to the question of his "madness." No Shakespearean 
student is warranted in assuming that Hamlet is a 
victim of "maniacal-depressive insanity" and in need 
of a strait jacket, or, with all due respect to the 
many ingenious medical arguments which have been 
advanced, that Shakespeare intended the character as 
*'a study in madness." There is no reason to believe 
that the poet possessed exceptional scientific, physio- 
logical, or medical knowledge, or that when he wrote 
"Hamlet" he wrote as an alienist. There is some 
reason to believe that he founded his "Hamlet" on 
an earlier and bad play derived from the French 
"Hystorie of Hamblet," in Belleforest's "Historic 
Tragique," of which there was an English transla- 
tion accessible in his time. It is certain, from the 
testimony of all his works, that he thoroughly knew 
human nature. In Hamlet he exhibited a represent- 
ative image of pathetic experience, common in a 
greater or less degree to the human race, and the 



326 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

human race has therefore continuously manifested 
intense interest in it. John PhiHp Kemble noticed 
that any volume of Shakespeare which had been 
habitually read would show signs of having been 
more frequently opened at the play of "Hamlet" 
than at any other. Commentators who maintain that 
Hamlet is drawn as consistently sane have pushed 
their contention to excess: that impassioned thinker 
and caustic writer Charles Reade, for example, inti- 
mated that a belief in Hamlefs "madness" is a symp- 
tom of insanity in the person who entertains it. But 
what are the facts? Hamlet, noble and gentle, a 
Prince, invested with extraordinary charm and placed 
at the summit of his social world, loving and beloved 
by a girl of singular spiritual and physical beauty, 
is suddenly stricken by the mysterious death of his 
father, whom he idolizes. He suspects foul play. He 
knows himself deprived of his royal inheritance. He 
sees his mother wedded with indecent haste to his 
uncle, whom he dislikes and instinctively suspects. 
He is prone to melancholj% and that predisposition, 
accentuated by bereavement and affliction, prompts 
him to brood on suicide and death. In that woful 
condition he is confronted by a spirit from beyond 
the grave, apprised that his father has been murdered, 
that his mother has committed aduiteiy with the mur- 
derer, to whom she is now man'ied, and that the mur- 



HAMLET 327 

derer wears the crown; and he is enjoined to execute 
revenge. Such an accumulation of anguish and hor- 
ror, descending like an avalanche upon an already 
broken spirit and bringing with it an overwhelming 
access of doubt and perturbation, might well be 
expected to paralyze the will. This it does, and the 
conduct of Hamlet, thereafter, under the stress of that 
awful experience, conclusively manifests a condition 
which would be fairly designated as "intermittent 
compound-confusional insanity," involving morbid 
emotional and mental disturbance "consequent upon 
shock." The wretched man wanders in the border- 
land between reason and madness. His scene with 
Ophelia is a heartrending exhibition equally of hope- 
lessness of love and despair of reason. His projects 
of revenge contemplate not only slaughter of the 
bodies of his enemies but provision for the eternal 
damnation of their immortal souls. Claudius is to be 
slain in such a way that "his heels will kick at heaven" 
and his "damn'd and black soul" go to "hell." Rosen- 
crantz and Guildenstern are to be killed without allow- 
ance of time even for shrift. To infer that the 
condition and proceedings of Hamlet are invariably 
sane is surely to misapprehend the meaning of the 
tragedy. 



V 



328 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

DAVID GARRICK. 

David Garrick, when acting Hamlet^ whom he rep- 
resented as a sane man assuming insanity, wore a court- 
dress of his time, that of King George the Third. 
His impersonation of the Prince was first given in 
1742. There is emphatic testimony that it was 
princely in spirit and consistent and sustained in 
execution. Particular emphasis was laid by Garrick 
on the expression of filial love, and he caused an 
effect of prodigious emotion by his delivery of the 
passionate speeches, such as the passage beginning 
"Oh, what a rogue and peasant slave am I!" At 
the climax of the Play Scene, when Hamlet wildly 
vociferates the lines 

*' For some must watch while some must sleep, 
So runs the world away ! " 

he pulled out a white pocket-handkerchief and, walk- 
ing rapidly about the stage, twirled it spasmodically 
in the air. That "business" was long afterward 
repeated by Macready, with whom it seems generally 
to have been thought original, and it was for using 
that "business," not inappropriate though rather fini- 
cal, that Edwin Forrest hissed Macready, at the 
Theatre Royal, Edinburgh, in 1846. In the interval 
between the time of Betterton and that of Garrick 



HAMLET 329 

Hamlet's counsel to the Players was not spoken on 
the stage, but Garrick restored it. His treatment 
of the play in general, however, was not judicious. 
The tragedy is long, and for representation it must 
be cut. Garrick for a time omitted the Grave-diggers; 
and he discarded mention of the fatal catastrophe that 
befalls Ophelia, rejected the expedient of poisoning 
the Queen, causing her to become insane from remorse, 
and introduced a combat between Hamlet and the 
King, in which the King was killed. His version was 
a mutilation. 

EARLY ACTORS.— KEMBLE. 

Robert Wilks, Spranger Barry, Thomas Sheridan, 
and John Henderson, all of the period extending from 
the time of Queen Anne into that of King George 
the Third, gave performances of the Prince which 
were variously commended, without being minutely 
described. Barry's musical, sympathetic voice was 
extolled, and the extraordinary ability of Henderson, 
who must have been, indeed, extraordinary, since he 
excelled in such widely contrasted parts as lago, Fal- 
staff, and Sliylock, was warmly celebrated. 

John Philip Kemble was the first exceptionally 
popular representative of Hamlet (1783) subse- 
quent to the time of Garrick. The portrait of him in 
that character, an artificial, somewhat absurd picture 



330 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

by Sir Thomas Lawrence, is well and widely known 
in the engraving by H. Dawe. It is said that Jack- 
son, the English pugilist, remembered as Lord Bryon's 
preceptor in boxing, stood for the figure in that paint- 
ing. The Prince is represented standing, — and the 
pose is statelj^ — presumably in a burial-ground in the 
neighborhood of the Castle of Elsinore, which is shown 
in the distance. His left hand holds a skull. His 
arms are drooping at full length. His eyes 
are upturned in a manner incongruous with either 
mournful revery or passionate rhapsody. He is 
arrayed in a suit of black raiment, consisting of a hat 
with two plumes and several feathers in it, a doublet 
slashed at the waist, knee-breeches, stockings, low 
shoes with rosettes on them, a wide sword-belt across 
his right shoulder, sustaining a heavy sword, a ribbon 
about the neck, from which is pendent the Danish 
Order of the Elephant (instituted about 1448), a 
capacious cloak trimmed with fur, and the Order of the 
Garter. He wears a loose, open collar, and outside 
of it something which seems to be a ribbon of esses. 
His cuffs are white. According to Kemble's biog- 
rapher, his Hamlet wore a black-velvet court-dress, 
a star on the breast, an Order pendent to a ribbon, the 
Garter, a mourning sword, deep ruffles, and black 
shoes with buckles on them. His face was clean shaved 
and his hair was powdered^ 




JOHN PHILIP KEMBLE AS HAMLET 

AFTER THE PAINTING BY SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS 



»i» 



HAMLET 331 

Kemble indicated the "madness" of Hamlet as 
assumed, and whenever he feigned distraction, he 
dishevelled his hair. The pervasive quality of his 
performance appears to have been the hopeless lone- 
liness of immedicable grief, and especially he 
expressed filial love. When he uttered the word 
"father," in speaking Hamlet's adjuration to the 
Ghost, he simulated affectionate feeling so well as 
often to move some of his auditors to tears. As he 
spoke that word he sank to his knees, and upon the 
disappearance of the Ghost he repeated that action. 
Hazlitt wrote at one time that Kemble played Ham- 
let like a man in armor, but at another time that his 
Hamlet had not been surpassed. Leigh Hunt, an 
astute observer of mental and spiritual complexities 
of constitution in actors, wrote that Kemble was best 
in characters that are occupied with themselves and 
their own importance. However that may be, his 
impersonation exerted a greater influence upon the 
tradition of the part inherited by all his successors in 
it than has been exerted by any other performance of 
Hamlet. 

Among those successors, on the English Stage, 
native born, most of whom have passed away, were 
Charles Kemble, Charles Mayne Young, Edmund 
Kean, Junius Brutus Booth, William Charles 
Macready, Charles John Kean, Barry Sullivan, 



332 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

Gustavus Vaughan Brooke, Samuel Phelps, Henry 
Irving, Wilson Barrett, Herbert Beerbohm-Tree, 
and Johnston Forbes-Robertson. About each of 
those names, particularly when associated with 
Hamlet, there has been a lively surge of conflicting 
critical opinion. Each has been a prominent figure 
as the Prince, and each has been earnestly extolled 
and as earnestly condemned within comparatively 
recent years. Those of signal importance who 
have appeared in America in this character are 
considered, in chronological order, in the section of 
this chapter which is devoted to The American 
Stage. The Hamlet of Charles Kemble lives in 
the illuminative words of his famous daughter Fanny — 
"an image of a distracted intellect and a broken heart." 
His ideal seems to have been absolutely true; his ex- 
pression of it inadequate, except in parts. Young and 
Macready were scholars in the character, the latter 
excelling in the expression of a profound and thrilling 
sense of Hamlefs preternatural experience. Edmund 
Kean, superb in Richard and Sir Giles, seems not to 
have achieved equal success in Hamlet. Indeed, a very 
old man who had seen him in all the great parts that 
he played told me (in 1877) that Kean's only entirely 
consistent, sustained impersonation was that of Sir 
Edward Mortimer, in "The Iron Chest." The elder 



HAMLET 333 

Booth was deficient in princely grace but winning 
by reason of exquisite sensibility. Charles Kean, 
whom I saw often, and found admirable in various 
characters, was mechanical, unsympathetic, and unin- 
teresting in Hamlet. 

AMERICAN STAGE. 

The first performance of Hamlet on the American 
stage was given by Lewis Hallam at Philadelphia, in 
July, 1759, and in November, 1761, he acted it at a 
theatre in Beekman Street, New York. Beekman 
Street was then known as Chapel Street, and the 
theatre was then a new one. Hallam has had many 
successors. Particular account of them would fill a 
large volume. A glow of renown still lingers on im- 
personations of the Prince by Thomas Abthorpe 
Cooper, James William Wallack, George Vanden- 
hoff, James E. Murdoch, Edwin Forrest, Edward 
Loomis Davenport, Edwin Booth, and Lawrence 
Barrett. 

EDWIN FORREST. 

Edwin Forrest esteemed himself and was esteemed 
by his admirers a great representative of Hamlet. He 
wore in that part a black doublet and over that a 
short, black cape. The doublet was edged at the 



334 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

neck with white, was buttoned down the front, and 
was fastened around the waist by a belt. The cape, 
open in front, was allowed to hang loose, and was 
looped across the chest by a double cord, to which 
were appended several tassels. Black-silk tights and 
low shoes with buckles completed the dress. Forrest 
wore his own hair, slightly curled. His face was clean 
shaved, except for small, short, black side-whiskers, a 
short moustache, and a small tuft under the lower lip. 
His neck was bare. His person was conspicuously 
stalwart. His calves were huge. His face was pale, 
and his eyebrows, naturally dark, were blackened. 
He was, customarily, at the first revealment of Ham- 
let, "discovered" seated under a small canopy at the 
right of the scene, the King and Queen being seated 
under a large canopy in the centre. He spoke in a 
deep voice. Being a resolute, formidable, athletic man, 
of combative disposition and truculent aspect, he was 
as little like Hamlet as it would be possible for any 
person to be. His excellence as an actor, when in his 
natural and proper sphere, was eminent, and it was 
duly recognized. The power, passion, authority, and 
art of his personations of Othello, King Lear, Corio- 
lanus, Spartacus, Virginius, Fehro, Aylmere, and 
Damon, for example, were in the highest degree con- 
vincing and admirable, but his temperamental as 
well as physical unfitness for Hamlet was so radical 



HAMLET 335 

and obvious as to be painful. The moment he was 
seen in that character all possibility of any illusion 
of poetry, pathos, tenderness, and grace was fore- 
stalled. He spoke the words, he did the usual busi- 
ness, and sometimes in his burly way he was per- 
sonally interesting, but he was completely unsuited 
to the part. In the opening scene of the Presence, 
his head was held erect, his dark, glowing eyes were 
fixed defiantly on the King, his hands were clenched 
on the arms of his throne chair, his demeanor was 
that of menace, not of melancholy, and it was evi- 
dent that if any "clouds" hung upon him they were 
thunder clouds. His delivery of Hamlet's first line, 
"A little more than kin and less than kind," was 
firm, deep, reverberant, and it needed only a sono- 
rous profane expletive to make it superlatively For- 
restian. Forrest possessed a magnificent voice, and 
he was well aware of it. He could perfectly convey 
the musical quality that is inherent in certain words 
and cadences of words. In the stage business 
of Forrest's Hamlet there was no salient trait of 
novelty. He had seen and acted with Cooper, who 
followed the example of Kemble, and he had seen 
and acted vdth Edmund Kean; he knew the tradition 
and for the most part he followed it. His death- 
scene was needlessly "realistic," and he was accus- 
tomed to say that a man as strong as himself could 



336 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

not expire without decided manifestations of physical 
agony. There was a coarse streak in the nature of 
Forrest, and it showed itself on occasion in his acting. 



EDWARD LOOMIS DAVENPORT. 

The art of Davenport in the performance of Ham- 
let was beautiful. He was one of those rare and 
charming actors who obey the precept of Shakespeare, 
and in the whirlwind of passion use all with gentleness, 
not overstepping the modesty of Nature. Sincerity, 
delicacy, grace, and fine intelligence pervaded all his 
impersonations. The vitalizing element that some 
of them lacked was the magnetic power which arouses 
feeling, carries conviction, and creates an effect of 
pathos. It was possible to view his performance of 
Hamlet without being deeply moved. He was fort- 
unate in person: his figure was imposing, his head 
noble, his countenance expressive, his voice copious 
and sympathetic, his demeanor dignified, his action fine. 
Some old pictures represent him as a veritable "guy," 
ungainly and ridiculous, wearing ample "side-wWskers," 
— and they do him much injustice. His ideal of the 
Dane accorded with that of Kemble and Macready. 
Hamlet, as played by him, simulated insanity, was an 
affectionate, sorrowing son, was a lover, seemed 
entirely qualified to revenge the murder of his father. 



HAMLET 337 

and exemplified the scholar and the soldier. He was 
not boisterous ; he was not belligerent : yet he appeared 
a capable Prince^ and in his presence the observer did 
not understand why the hand of retributive justice 
should be stayed. He delivered the soliloquies in 
fluent, melodious tones, and he used the customary 
stage business. I knew Davenport well, and greatly 
liked and admired him. He impressed me, in the 
latter part of his career, as being a man whom dis- 
appointment had somewhat embittered and whose 
sensibilities had been somewhat blunted by ill fortune, 
vicissitude, and rough contact with the world. He 
was, in many respects, a great actor: his Hamlet 
satisfied the sense of form; it did not satisfy the sense 
of soul. 

BARRY SULLIVAN. 

Barry Sullivan, who had long been popular on the 
Irish Stage, made his first appearance in London, 
February 7, 1852, acting Hamlet, and on November 
22, 1858, made his first appearance in New York, in 
the same part. It was a favorite with him, as it is 
with most actors of tragedy. When he began his 
second and last tour of America he again presented 
Hamlet, appearing at Booth's Theatre, August 30, 
1875, and giving a performance which, in point of 
definite ideal and artistic finish, was remarkably fine. 



338 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

I met and conversed with him, about that time, and 
was impressed by his soHdity of character, his scholar- 
ship, and his courtesy. His aspect, whether on the 
stage or off, was leonine, his demeanor stately. He 
was tall, his face was of that square form observable 
in portraits of men of the time of Queen Anne, his 
eyes were gray, bright, keen, and expressive of an 
impetuous temperament carefully controlled. His 
Hamlet was intellectual, not poetic: a man of action, 
not a baffled dreamer "thinking too precisely on the 
event." His ideal evinced imaginative perception, 
but there was no pathos in his expression of it. He 
made Hamlet a sane man simulating insanity, and he 
effectively expressed the bitter humor that sometimes 
flickers through the Prince's constitutional melancholy. 
His elocution was correct, and in delivery of the solilo- 
quies deeply impressive, as illustrative of the art of 
thinking aloud. He dressed Hamlet in black and 
purple raiment and wore a light brown wig, the hair 
being parted in the middle, curled and flowing. His 
method was direct, his art well concealed, — producing 
the effect of spontaneity. One of his readings 
attracted attention by reason of its peculiarity. 
When Hamlet is baffling the inquisitive spies, Rosen- 
crantz and Guildenstern, he grasped a wrist of each 
of them and exclaimed, "I know a Jiawh from a 
heron'* and then, after a pause, looking from one to 



HAMLET 339 

the other, and throwing them off, contemptuously 
added, "Pshaw!" In stage business he generally 
followed accepted traditions. He employed the 
expedient of twirling a handkerchief, at "I must be 
idle," — the usage introduced by Garrick and continued 
by Macready. His acting incurred the practical dis- 
approbation of Edwin Forrest, who liissed him, in 
Philadelphia, as he had hissed Macready in Edin- 
burgh. Sullivan, however, — it was said at the time, 
and I believe truly, — rejoined by pointing at him, in 
a stage box, as he spoke the line "That great baby 
you see there is not yet out of his swaddling clouts." 
A comic occurrence incident to Sullivan's advent 
at Booth's Theatre as Hamlet (1875) seems worthy 
of mention. The Band of the 69th Regiment (Irish) 
of the New York State Militia had been stationed 
in the theatre to welcome the Irish tragedian, and, by 
a ludicrous mistake, it pealed forth its joyous greet- 
ing upon the first entrance of the Ghost, crashing into 
the silence with *'Lo! the Conquering Hero Comes!'* 

EDWIN BOOTH. 

Edwin Booth was essentially a tragedian, and 
although he liked to act comedy, believing and declar- 
ing that it helped to impart flexibility to his style, he 



340 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

never brilliantly succeeded in it. He possessed the 
princely mind, the gloomy temperament, the intro- 
spective propensity, the contemplative disposition, the 
moody manner, and the slender, nervous physique 
that are appropriate to the character of Hamlet. He 
could be genial and even gay when in company with 
an intimate friend, but in general he was reserved and 
silent. His mind dwelt almost continually on solemn 
themes. He was constitutionally a melancholy man: 
even his smile, though very sweet, was sad. On one 
occasion, speaking to me about the murder of Lin- 
coln by his brother John, he said: "All my life I have 
thought of dreadful things that might happen to me, 
and I believed there was no horror that I had not 
imagined, but I never dreamed of such a dreadful 
thing as that." He was deeply religious, in the broad- 
est sense of that word, and he was credulous of the 
possibility of spiritual apparitions. He told me that 
he believed he had seen the face of his first wife, Mary 
Devlin, looking in at him through a car window, in 
the night, when he was travelling from New York 
to Boston, in 1863, to be present at her death-bed, 
where he arrived shortly after she had died. Such was 
his temperament, and possessing that temperament he 
was peculiarly fitted to act such parts as involve 
grief, gloom, and the element of the preternatural. 
He was born to act Hamlet. 



HAMLET 341 

Many years ago Booth related to me how it hap- 
pened that he undertook to play that part, and in my 
"Life" of him I have told the story, which has been 
much copied. He was in California with his renowned 
father, and they were to act together, for Edwin's 
"benefit," in "Venice Preserved," the father as 
Pierre, the son as Jaffier. When Edwin had dressed 
himself for Jaffier he entered liis father's room. The 
elder actor, looking at him, mused a moment, and 
said: 

"You look like Hamlet. Why didn't you play that 
for your benefit?" 

"I will," the youth answered, "if I ever have 
another." 

Later the chance came, and Edwin, remembering 
that promise, acted Hamlet, and he continued to act 
it all his life. No actor of the many years known to 
me has more completely entered into and expressed 
the soul of Hamlet than he did. His only peer in the 
acting of the part was Heniy Irving, and in the elocu- 
tion he had no peer. 

Booth's first appearance as Hamlet was made on 
April 25, 1853 (for his benefit), at the San Francisco 
Theatre. In 1857, after a successful engagement in 
Boston, he came to New York, for the first time as 
a "star," appearing, May 4, at Burton's Metropolitan 
Theatre, afterward the Winter Garden, as Richard 



342 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

the Third J, and later he there acted the part for the 
first time in that city. After various ventures in 
America he acted, in 1861, in a repertory, in England, 
and in November that year, he appeared in JNIanchester, 
as Hamlet, Henry Irving being the Laertes. During 
the next three years he filled many engagements in 
American cities, and on November 26, 1864, he accom- 
plished one of the most conspicuous victories of his 
artistic career, — the first of the superb revivals with 
which he dignified the American Stage, — in a produc- 
tion of "Hamlet," at the Winter Garden Theatre, 
New York, which remained there until March 24, 
1865, enjoying a career of 100 consecutive perform- 
ances, — the longest run which, at that time, had been 
achieved with that or any other Shakespearean play, 
and, all things considered, a more remarkable accom- 
plishment than even Irving's subsequent run of 200 
performances of "Hamlet" at the London Lyceum. 

Booth's revival was effected with every helpful 
auxiliary then within the reach of theatrical enter- 
prise. After its withdrawal from the Winter Garden 
the tragedy was taken to the Boston Theatre, where 
Booth was acting in it, when, on April 14, the insane 
murder of President Lincoln by John Wilkes Booth, 
the tragedian's brother, appalled and enraged the 
country, causing Edwdn's retirement. He reap- 
peared, under pressure of necessity, at the Winter 



HAMLET 343 

Garden, on January 3, 1866, acting Hamlet. On 
January 22, 1867, he received a ''Hamlet medal," 
the gift, publicly tendered, of many citizens of New 
York, who wished to express their appreciation of his 
great performance of that part and formally to 
recognize the importance of his service to the public. 
He effected many subsequent presentments of the 
play, — one of the best of them being its first presenta- 
tion at Booth's Theatre, New York, January 5, 
1870. 

Edwin Booth was an inspired tragic genius, and 
for that very reason his acting was uneven: the 
mechanism of his art was always under his control, 
but he could not always inflame his imagination and 
liberate his feelings. I have seen him act when his 
performances were lifeless, but even his worst was 
better than the best of many other actors, and his 
best, in tragedy, was sublime, — and it is at his best 
that every artist should be judged and remembered. 
In acting Harnlet he carried "naturalness" of method 
to the fullest extent that is possible in the treatment 
of poetic tragedy, and the effect of his personation 
was that of perfect truth. The arrangement of "Ham- 
let" which he presented in 1870 formed the basis of 
his final revision of the acting text, which was pub- 
lished in 1878. The enthusiastic commentator 
Charles Cowden Clarke affirmed that Shakespeare 



344 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

"never wrote a line that did not harmonize with and 
tend to define, the portrait he was limning," — a state- 
ment aptly exhibitive of the extravagance of adula- 
tion which would accept the defects in Shakespeare's 
writing as equally precious with its transcendent 
beauties, and which has prompted some of the most 
erroneous critical estimates of his plaj^s. Booth's 
arrangement of "Hamlet" was designed to clarify 
obscurity and rectify error, and it was made with 
the reverence of a loving disciple. It consists of 
five acts, containing fourteen scenes. The cur- 
tailments were made with a view to accelerate move- 
ment, eliminate description, and avoid repetition. 
Offensive words and passages were invariably excluded 
by Booth from all his stage versions of the plays in 
which he acted. In "Hamlet" a few lines were 
transposed and a few words were changed, but 
without alteration of the sense. The announce- 
ment of Ophelia's madness was allotted to Marcellus 
instead of Horatio because, if Horatio had been aware 
of Ophelia's affliction and of her subsequent death, he 
must have communicated the knowledge to Hamlet, 
previous to the Burial Scene, in the Churchyard. The 
general method of Shakespeare, in displaying action 
long past, is to display it as proceeding in the present, 
and his plays are customarily embellished with illus- 
trative accessories or references appertaining either 



HAMLET 345 

to his own period or to others, long subsequent to 
the historic period of the action displayed. King 
Claudius, for example, is furnished with cannon, like 
King John (1199), though cannon were not in use 
until the battle of Cressy (1346). As a dramatic 
editor, however. Booth considered the vital necessity 
of effect, and in making liis "Prompt Book" of "Ham- 
let" refrained from all attempt to reconcile Poetry and 
irrelevant History. In particular he did not revert 
from the poet's text to the ancient chronicle, con- 
verting the Prince into a burly Dane, of the Middle 
Ages, and degrading a poetic ideal to the level of 
commonplace. He treated the tragedy, from first to 
last, as a poem, and he dressed it in conformity with 
idealized usages and customs of an early period in the 
history of Denmark, such as he found conducive to 
the preservation of a pictorial atmosphere without 
sacrifice of an effect of reality. His stage business 
was elaborate, various, and carefully considerate of 
every detail. Full description and analysis of it and 
of his readings would fill a volume. A few par- 
ticulars will suffice. He used, as his father had done, 
various readings and business expedients original with 
John Philip Kemble, — such, for example, as a stress 
of pathetic enunciation of the word "father," when 
entreating the Ghost to speak; a strong emphasis on 
the word "yo^/' in Hamlefs question to Horatio, 



346 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

"Did you not speak to it?"; an expressive shading 
of words in Hamlefs reply to Horatio^ "Sir, my 
good friend J I'll change that name with you/' and 
also in his "And for my 50mZ^ what can it do to that?"; 
and the greeting of Bernardo, obviously a person 
whom Hamlet has not met before, in a courteous but 
markedly formal manner. Kemble, when making 
Hamlet's exit, following the receding phantom, 
allowed his right arm to droop, so that the sword, held 
by the right hand, was trailed behind him. The 
stage usage had been to present the point of the sword 
toward the spectre. Booth reversed the sword, so as 
to present the hilt, which, being in the shape of a 
cross, might be supposed protective against a spirit 
possibly evil, which had assumed "a pleasing shape," 
and, as far as I can ascertain, he was the first to 
do so. The business certainly was original with 
him. 

The main structure of Booth's performance, after 
it had been matured, that is from about 1870 till the 
last, remained unchanged, but he sought relief from the 
monotony of repetition by the expedient of varying 
details of business. Thus, in the Closet Scene, he 
sometimes caused both the picture of the dead King 
Hamlet and that of the living King Claudius to be 
hung upon a wall of the room; at other times, the 
picture of King Claudius was pendent on the breast 




From a photograph hij Saruiuj 

EDWIN BOOTH AS HAMLET 



HAMLET 347 

of the Queen, while that of King Hamlet hung upon 
the wall; at others, and tliis was Ms usual custom, 
Booth, as Hamlet, wore a medallion picture of his 
father, suspended on a chain worn about his neck, 
while that of his uncle was either placed upon the 
wall or worn by the Queen: sometimes no actual 
pictures were used, both being upon "the fourth wall," 
and left to the imagination of the audience. 

One of Booth's important innovations was intel- 
ligent treatment of the use of the skulls in the 
Churchyard Scene. The Grave-digger is making a 
grave for Ophelia, and as he digs he throws up several 
bones and skulls. Booth caused him to pause in his 
labor, to look carefully at one of the skulls, to which 
had adhered a fragment of soiled leather, — the tattered 
remnant of a fool's cap, — to pat it in a kindly, jocose 
way, and to lay it aside, and later when he said 
''This skull has lain in the earth three and twenty 
years," to take it up and designate it as "Yorick's 
skull, — the King's jester." Prior to Booth's invention 
of that expedient no means had been provided of dis- 
criminating among the several skulls that were thrown 
out of the grave. 

Booth, like Macready, and Indeed like the majority 
of actors, held the opinion that the "madness" 
of Hamlet is assumed. The question of Hamlefs 
"madness" appears to be largely one of definition. 



348 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

What is meant by the word when associated with 
this character? The ine\atable consequence of the 
terrible experience which befalls Hamlet in his con- 
dition of exaggerated sensibility and morbid gloom 
would be a shock almost destructive of perfect sanity 
in any organization, certainly productive of tem- 
porary frenzy in one as tremulous as his. The "mad- 
ness" of Hamlet is a distraught condition of the ner- 
vous system in which he will vacillate, doubt, believe, 
brood, dream, suffer, resolve, hesitate, be strong at 
one moment and weak the next, accomplish noth- 
ing, and wither in despair. Booth aimed to present 
Hamlet as consistently sane. "I do not consider 
Hamlet mad," he said, "except in craft." Neverthe- 
less, when he acted Hamlet, an instillation of 
"madness" found its way into the performance, 
and made it wonderfully effective, because abso- 
lutely true. It is the word from which so many 
minds recoil. 

Valuable as a showing is of an actor's expedients 
of expression there is a richer revealment of his art, 
especially when he is acting this part, which it is more 
difficult to describe, — the revealment of his soul. 
It is easy to say that Booth, as Hamlet, seemed 
"haunted." It is far from easy to depict the means 
he used to cause that effect. Mere description of his 
movement would not suffice. The analyst should, if 



HAMLET 849 

possible, reveal, or, certainly, indicate, the workings 
of the actor's mind, the quality of his spirit, and 
interpret that superlative power of the imagination 
which enables certain exceptional persons to assume 
wildered or tempestuous or agonized states of mind 
and feeling, and to undergo stress of experience wliich 
it would be ruin and death actually to feel. The 
supreme excellence of dramatic art is the coincidence 
of perfect ideal and perfect expression: that excel- 
lence was shown in Booth's Hamlet, at its best. 
He possessed a peculiar physical fitness for the 
part; a slender figure, a noble head, expressive 
dark eyes, mobility of countenance, grace of move- 
ment, dignity of bearing, a smile that was 
sadder than tears, and a voice that could express 
every variety of serious emotion. He possessed also 
the innate melancholy of temperament that comports 
with Hamlet, together with a facile style of expres- 
sion that made his acting spontaneous and, without 
sacrifice of its melody, caused blank verse to seem a 
natural form of language. In the spirit he disclosed 
there was the mournful incertitude of a mind that 
is overwhelmed by the mysteiy of life and death, 
appalled by the vastness of man's environment in 
the boundless universe, and dazed in his baffled effort 
to penetrate the darkness of inscrutable destiny. His 
definition of the part illumines, to some extent, his 



350 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

personation of it: "Hamlet is the ej^itome of man- 
kind," so Booth wrote, "not an individual; a sort of 
magic mirror, in which all men and women see the 
reflex of themselves." JMillions of human beings have 
passed, and millions are passing, more or less exactly, 
through the spiritual experience exemplified in Ham- 
let, — their minds conscientiously enthralled by the 
sense of duty to live a rational life, their hearts 
broken by affliction, their thoughts and feelings per- 
plexed and confused, their hopes alternating with their 
fears, their faith shaken by their doubt, their desolated 
souls longing for the relief of death, and yet dread- 
ing the something — or the nothing — after it. Booth's 
personation of Hamlet was intuitively comprehended 
rather than mentally grasped by multitudes of persons 
who saw it, and it helped them to a better under- 
standing of themselves. Few of them either tried or 
cared to analyze it, to ascertain and designate its 
alluring or subjugating attributes, but the charm and 
the power of those attributes were universally felt, — ■ 
the princely dignity; the exquisite sensibility; the 
filial affection; the haunted condition, — so expressed 
in the Ghost Scenes as to thrill the imagination with 
a shuddering sense of spiritual surroundings; — the 
agonizing pathos of the renunciation of Ophelia and 
therewith the abandonment of all hope of solace in 
woman's love; the quick suspicion, — furtive, tremulous, 



HAMLET ^51 

painful, — of every human being except the beloved 
Horatio; the anguish of outraged veneration for the 
sinful mother; the misery that broods on thoughts of 
suicide; the fateful, terrific, involuntary impetuosity 
of the killing of PoloniuSj with the wild, madly hope- 
ful cry ''Is it the king?" and the sublimity of resigna- 
tion in the hour of death. No element was omitted, 
whether of the character or the experience, and the 
art was so fine that it could better be described as living 
than as acting. 

LAWRENCE BARRETT. 

Lawrence Barrett, early in his professional career, 
was much influenced by the acting of Booth, with 
whom, as leading man, he was associated at the 
Winter Garden Theatre in 1863, and when, in the 
following year, at New Orleans, he appeared as a star, 
he directly and admittedly imitated Booth as Riche- 
lieu and Hamlet, though later he matured his style 
and became distinctively individual. He was a great 
interpreter of poetic ideals of human nature. Parts in 
which specially he excelled, — Cassius, Yorich, Grin- 
goire, and Lanciotto, for example, — are those in which 
passion at times breaks loose in tumult of action and 
splendid eloquence. He rose to a noble height in a 
character which has long been discarded in our theatre, 
that of King James the Fifth, in "The King of the 



352 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

Commons." As Hamlet he followed in the beaten 
track, dressing and acting the part according to the 
example of Booth. His final method in it, though, 
was his own, and it was characterized by continuous 
tremor and nervous excitement, restless movement, 
and strongly accentuated bitterness of feeling — "the 
torture of the mind." The business of allowing Hamlet 
to perceive that the King and Polonius, "lawful 
espials," are eavesdroppers in the Prince's scene with 
Ophelia was used by him, — as it had been by all 
other performers of the Prince, at least, in our 
time, except Fechter, — and that was a blemish on a 
scene in which he reached a supreme altitude of pas- 
sion and pathos. Such a girl as Ophelia could not 
succeed in acting deceit. Hamlet, at that crisis, 
intuitively surmises treachery somewhere, and he is 
at once shocked into a wild, bitter, resentful passion, on 
perceiving the poor girl's attempt at a duplicity which 
wellnigh breaks her heart. There are few situations 
in Shakespeare more agonizing, and Barrett was touch- 
ingly true in his interpretation of its agony. 

JOHN EDWARD McCULLOUGH. 

In McCullough's performance of Hamlet the 
Kemble tradition of the part, as to business and 
readings, was perceptible, modified by the influence 



HAMLET 353 

of Edwin Forrest, from the force of whose example 
he never entirely freed himself. The spirit of the 
performance was mournful, the form distinct, the 
method robust and confident. The only conspicuously 
novel attribute of it was absence of ornamentation — 
such as had been, and continues to be, customary: 
it was severely simple and therein excellent. At the 
climax of the Play Scene and at the killing of 
Polonius, — essentially great moments, and treated as 
such by that actor, — his spirit seemed to struggle for 
a freedom of expression that it could not reach: he 
knew precisely what to do and he knew precisely 
how to do it, but he could not accomplish it. Once, 
and only once, — which was in the Closet Scene, 
after the appearance of the Ghost, — did he embody 
the Hamlet of Shakespeare. In situations that are 
haunted and weird, involving mystery and dread, 
McCullough was impeded by insuperable obstacles, 
both physical and spiritual. His face could express 
perplexity and distress of the mind, anguish aris- 
ing from the human affections, more readily than it 
could express intellectual conflict and spiritual misery, 
while his voice was attuned to the heroic and exultant 
emotions more than to the sombre gravity of philo- 
sophic or introspective meditation and the moodiness 
of melancholy. It was essential that McCullough's 
heart should be touched, — as it was by King Lear, — 



354 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

in order that his powers as an actor might become 
fully liberated, and Hamlet did not touch his heart. 
Like his exemplar, Forrest, however, he formed and 
expressed a definite ideal of the character. He cor- 
rectly presented the Prince and the scholar, he simu- 
lated insanity, and he fulfilled an artistic design with 
a precision that was beautiful in its grace and its 
absolute proficiency. He knew Hamlet as actors in 
general know him, but he did not possess any natural 
affinity with the part, and his performance, while 
highly creditable to the actor, was of no considerable 
import to the auditor. 



HENRY IRVING. 

Irving first acted Hamlet on June 20, 1864, at Man- 
chester, England, on the occasion of a performance for 
his benefit. In dressing the part he then wore a wig of 
flaxen hair, as Fechter had done. That device is gen- 
erally supposed to have been original with Fechter, but, 
in fact, it had been used, many years before he used 
it, by E. L. Davenport, in America, and Frederick 
C. P. Robinson had resorted to it, when, as a 
beginner, he was acting in provincial theatres of 
Great Britain. It is not effective and Irving soon dis- 
carded it. The great success of that wonderful actor 
as Hamlet was gained ten years after his first per- 



HAMLET 355 

formance of the part. On October 31, 1874f, at the 
London Lyceum Theatre, then managed by Hezekiah 
Linthicum Bateman, "Hamlet" was produced, with 
Irving as the Prince and Miss Isabella Bateman as 
Ophelia. The setting was meagre. Only two new 
sets were provided, — scenery which had been painted 
for "Eugene Aram" and other plays being impressed 
into service to make up a passable display. The 
cost of the production did not exceed $500. Irving 
himself must have known his strength and Bate- 
man implicitly trusted his genius, but expectation, 
in general, as to the result of the venture was not 
sanguine. Two hundred performances were given, 
the run terminating on June 29, 1875. That opulent 
and brilliant victory, — for such it was, both finan- 
cial and artistic, — was due exclusively to the acting 
of Irving. The interest that his performance aroused 
was not restricted to any one class of the public. 
The whole community participated in the excite- 
ment that his enterprise had caused and exulted in 
the triumph by which it had been crowned. The 
character of Hamlet, long a favorite theme of the 
essayist, was discussed far and wide, more than it 
ever had been before or ever has been since, and 
Irving's greatness as an actor, while not entirely 
undisputed, — although he had triumphantly acted 
Mathias, Charles the First, Eugene Aram, and 



356 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

Richelieu, — was then generally recognized, his leader- 
ship acknowledged, and his rank adjudged. Four 
years later, Bateman having died and jMrs. Bateman, 
who succeeded her husband as lessee of the Lyceum, 
having relinquished that theatre, Irving became its 
manager, in wliich office his first acliievement was a 
revival of "Hamlet." This was effected on December 
30, 1878, and the play then kept the stage until 
April 17, 1879. An important feature of that present- 
ment was the appearance in it of the consmnmate 
actress Ellen Terry, as Ophelia, — a character in which 
she never, in our time, has been equalled or even 
approached. With reference to the setting, on that 
occasion, Austin Brereton, the reverent, conscientious, 
faithful biographer of Irving, has recorded that it 
exhibited "no oppressive magnificence, wholly out of 
keeping with the spirit of the play, but a harmony of 
dramatic and pictorial effect," and that it made actual 
a dream which the actor told his audience he had 
cherished all his life. Irving's first appearance in 
America as Hamlet was made at the Star Theatre, 
New York, on November 26, 1884. 

Irving was twenty-six years old when he first 
appeared as Hamlet and he had then been on the 
stage eight years, playing in various towns as a mem- 
ber of stock companies, and he had seen performances 
of the Prince by several actors, among them Samuel 



HAMLET 357 

Phelps and Edwin Booth. In productions made for 
Booth, at Manchester, when, in 1861, that actor made 
his first professional visit to England, he had par- 
ticipated, and although he was not at any time an 
imitator, his acting, in after years, occasionally signi- 
fied, in subtle, elusive touches, that the peculiar style 
of Booth had been suggestive to him. Faint traces of 
that style were perceptible in his Richelieu and in his 
Hamlet. The part of the Prince was dear to him, and 
he deeply and continually studied it from boyhood 
onward. His personation of it cannot readily be 
described. It was compact of imagination and feeling, 
and it was wildly and strangely beautiful. The condi- 
tion, at first, was that of enforced calm; the aspect 
perplexed, dejected, forlorn; the manner that of 
natural courtesy, innate nobility, exquisite elegance. 
In the colloquy with Horatio and his companions, 
about the apparition, Irving's utterance of Hamlet's 
brief questions was modulated with scrupulous heed 
to the necessarilj'- quick, minute changes of feeling, 
from the calm wonder of "Saw? — Who?" to the wild 
passion of "I'll watch to-night — perchance 'twill walk 
again." In the midnight tryst with Horatio and the 
sentinels his excitement, though controlled, was in- 
tense; his glance roved over every discernible object 
and searched the darkness, until the apparition came. 
In the apostrophe to the phantom there was inexpres- 



358 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

sible tenderness, mingled with reverence and awe. The 
sympathy, pity, and love in his voice, when he half 
spoke, half sighed "Alas! poor ghost!" expressed the 
soul of Hamlet and sounded the key-note of the 
impersonation — for Irving, alike in his thought and 
his talk about the character, always dwelt on its 
intrinsic loveliness. At the climax of the Ghost Scene 
he became delirious, plucking tablets from a pouch, 
at his belt, and rushing to a pillar of the wall, against 
which he placed them, as he began to write. Irving 
had made careful study of the principles of elocution 
and he was thoroughly well acquainted with them, 
but he always contended that, in acting, impersona- 
tion should be considered before elocution, and in the 
delivery of the soliloquies of Hamlet he endeavored 
to exemplify thinking aloud: he was ruminative, never 
declamatory. At the close of the soliloquy on life and 
death he spoke "soft you, now" as if a sequent train 
of thought had occurred to him, and then came to 
an abrupt stop, with the words "The fair Ophelia!" 
uttered as he caught sight of her. In the ensuing 
colloquy, which terminates with Hamlefs parting 
from Ophelia, there was a pathetic blending of ten- 
derness with despair, and of the vigilant craft which, 
suspecting espionage, assumes disguise of madness, 
with the wildness of actual delirium precipitated by 
discovery that the suspicion is justified. In the Play 



HAMLET 359 

Scene he communicated the effect of agonizing 
intensity of emotion with difficulty held in check; his 
haggard visage was mournfully expressive of cruel 
suffering, and beneath an assumption of crazy levity 
there was in his demeanor an intent observance of 
every person, incident, and movement, but especially 
of Claudius: at the culmination of it, when the 
affrighted King and his courtiers rushed from the 
hall, he darted across the stage with a shrill cry, threw 
himself upon the throne, and in a tempest of delirium 
chanted the lines 

"Why, let the strucken deer go weep. 
The heart ungalled play. 
For some must watch while some must sleep — 
So runs the world away !" 

In the Closet Scene, when the Prince has, in some 
measure, recovered composure, his austerity toward 
his sinful mother was very sweetly tempered by filial 
tenderness. The Ghost, when it appeared in that 
scene, was injudiciously introduced in a kind of robe, 
according, it was made known, to the stage direction 
in the First Folio, "in his night gown," so that 
Hamlefs wild exclamation, "My father, in his 
habit, as he livedo seemed to imply that a "night- 
gown" was the habitual garb of his lamented sire 
when on earth. 



360 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

The use of pictures of King Hamlet and Clau- 
dius has given rise to much diversity of practice. The 
old custom of the Enghsh Stage was, in the Closet 
Scene, in which Hamlet rebukes the Queen, for 
the Prince to produce, out of his pocket, two minia- 
tures, "pictures in little," one of his uncle and one of 
his father, and on them to deliver his passionate 
descant. In 1794 that custom was first discarded. 
Hamlet continued to wear a picture of his father, but 
not that of his uncle, while Queen Gertrude wore a 
picture of her new husband, Claudius, attached to a 
bracelet on her arm, or her chamber wall was em- 
bellished with a half-length painting, as large as life, 
of the elder Hamlet, her husband deceased. Pictures 
of Claudius seem to have been, from the first, worn 
by Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Irving made no 
use of actual pictures in that scene, "the counterfeit 
presentment of two brothers" being left to the imag- 
ination of the audience. The pathos of liis acting, in 
that grievous interview of a heart-broken son and a 
guilty mother, as also in the Casket Scene, when 
Hamlet renounces Ophelia, has not been equalled and 
it could not be excelled. In the Churchyard Scene he 
caused a piteous effect, such as no other actor of 
Hamlet had ever done, by conveying a shuddering 
sense of the Princess uncontrollable propensity toward 
the contemplation of suicide, — often indulged and 



HAMLET 361 

as often restrained, — into his speaking of those 
significant Hnes 

" This doth betoken 

The corse they follow did with desperate hand 

Foredo its own life." 

Irving was a man of vast imagination and acute 
sensibility. He could be stern; he could, and some- 
times he did, hate ; he was revengeful when he had been 
injured; but his heart was very tender. A more lov- 
able man never lived. He knew human nature through 
and through, and his charity for its infirmities was 
unbounded. His magnanimity was supreme. He 
possessed essentially a princely nature, and his conduct 
of life was marked by invariable nobility of pur- 
pose, breadth of vision, quick sympathy with man- 
kind in all its aspirations, struggles, and sufferings, 
and a passionate, unflinching, unswerving devotion to 
the highest ideals. In his art he was conscientious, 
laborious, and thorough. Being what he was he 
could comprehend Hamlet, and he could, and did, act 
the part with essential fidelity to the Shakespearean 
conception. His treatment of the wonderful Third 
Act of the tragedy was perfect in every detail: 
a model and a monument of dramatic art. Within 
my knowledge, only two actors have entirely justified 
themselves, to exigent, comprehensive judgment, in 



362 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

their assumption of Hamlet — Edwin Booth and 
Henry Irving. 

Irving dressed Hamlet in a close-fitting doublet of 
black silk, black-silk tights, low, black shoes, and a 
black armhole cloak edged with fur. The doublet was 
girdled by a belt incrusted with jewels, and from the 
belt depended a dagger and small pouch at the right 
side, and a sword at the left. Around the neck was a 
gold chain, to which was attached a miniature of the 
dead King. He wore his own hair, which was 
abundant, carelessly parted in the middle, and a 
slight moustache, — which, ultimately, he discarded. 
The complete effect of his appearance was that of 
combined simplicity, refinement, elegance, and poetic 
wildness. His personality, expressed in his aspect, 
riveted attention. The eye followed him; the mind 
dwelt upon him; the imagination was absorbed by 
him. In his ideal of Hamlet the elements were com- 
bined of assumed madness and involuntary, sporadic 
derangement. The Prince as impersonated by him 
was not at any time calmly poised, but at all times 
the actor manifested that perfection of poise which 
consists in the steadiness of intense, continuous excite- 
ment — burning emotion concentrated at the topmost 
height of vitality. The pervading spirit of the imper- 
sonation was innate, ineffable loveliness of tempera- 
ment contending with bitterness of feeling wliich has 




HENRY IRVING AS HAMLET 

FROM THE PAINTING BY SIR EDWIN LONG, A.R.A. 



HAMLET 363 

been engendered by wrong, outrage, and a frenzy of 
terror and doubt precipitated by preternatural visita- 
tion. No other actor of our time made Hamlet more 
entirely lovable. 

WILSON BARRETT AS YOUNG HAMLET. 

The first line spoken by Hamlet is "A little more 
than kin and less than kind." That usually has been 
understood to mean, "I am a little more than a 
kinsman to you, because you, my uncle, have become 
my mother's husband; but I am a different sort of 
man." The line is a shaft of covert sarcasm. The 
shaft, however, is not hurled, because the words are 
spoken under the breath and are not intended to 
be heard by the King and Court. Wilson Barrett, in 
speaking that line, made the vowel short in the word 
"kind" and sounded that word as if it were a rhyme 
for "sinned." The word "kind," he declared, is an 
old-country word for "child," and Hamlet's meaning 
is, "I am more than a kinsman to you but less than a 
son." That makes the remark a mere statement of 
bald fact, such a statement as Hamlet, in his mood of 
bitter grief and resentment, would be unlikely to utter. 
There are times when the sorrow-stricken Prince is 
forlorn and gentle; there never is a time when he is 
commonplace. Still, it can be assumed that Hamlefs 



364 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

bitterness of feeling underlies his words, whichever 
way you take them ; and the suggested textual emenda- 
tion may, possibly, be correct. The point has no 
bearing on the question of ideal. 

When Hamlet comes upon the platform in the first 
of his Ghost Scenes, the time being the middle of the 
night and the night being, aj)parently, in late autumn, 
in the harsh climate of Denmark, he remarks that "the 
air bites shrewdly" and that "it is very cold." Wilson 
Barrett, speaking those words, turned the last half 
of the line into a question. "Is it very cold?" he 
asked; as if the Pnnce, already chilled and therefore 
aware of the frigid temperature, were inquiring into 
the state of the court thermometer. There were many 
other details of verbal modification in Wilson Barrett's 
reading of the part, all showing a striving after 
novelty and all insignificant. It was not by his 
"aitches" that John Philip Kemble became the Ham- 
let of his day. It is not by verbal quirks that any 
actor ever rose, or ever will rise, to the altitude of that 
sublime conception. 

Shakespeare begins the Third Act of "Hamlet" 
with a "Room in the Castle," and presently he changes 
the scene to a "Hall in the Same." In that Hall 
the play is acted which Hamlet has ordered the 
Players to represent before him, and to the prospect 
of which he has entreated the King and Queen. That 



HAMLET 365 

Play Scene Wilson Barrett presented in a garden. 
The idea, probably, was derived from a hint in "Coxe's 
Travels," which mentions "Hamlet's Garden," adja- 
cent to the Palace of Kronberg, near Elsinore, in 
which tradition says that the murder of the King was 
committed. The actor thought that he could derive a 
fine dramatic effect from causing Claudius to behold 
the copy of his monstrous crime upon the actual spot 
— "within mine orchard" — where it was perpetrated. 
Upon being told (he wrote) that the climate of 
Northern Europe is cold, even on a night in summer, 
for outdoor theatricals, he replied that in the time 
of "Hamlet" open-air theatres were customary. That 
position illustrates the fragile texture of his theory. 
There can be no serious objection to the use of a 
garden. Whatever will augment the legitimate dra- 
matic effect of a play, without offence to reason, can 
rightlj^ be introduced, because unless a play is effect- 
ive it is useless. But the reason should be avowed. 
No theatres of any kind were in existence in Den- 
mark in the time of the historic Hamlet. Beside, if 
reference to the time of the play, the eleventh cen- 
tury, is to govern in one particular it should govern 
in all. If "Hamlet" is to be mounted and dressed 
according to local custom in the historic period of 
Fengon and Horvendile, most of the persons in it must 
present themselves in skins. No authority, further- 



366 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

more, would remain for the elaborate fencing play 
that was introduced by Wilson Barrett in the scene 
of Hainlefs combat with Laertes. The art of foining, 
or defensive sword-play with the rapier and foil, 
did not come into fashion as a courtly practice until 
about the thirteenth century. 

It is a worthy ambition that endeavors, in the stage- 
setting of a Shakespearean play, to harmonize the 
work in all its parts and to remove whatever disparities 
may have been left in it by the author. But that 
result is not always attainable. In general it can 
be only approximately reached. Every one of Shake- 
speare's plays that is acted must be more or less 
cut, because almost every one of them is too long for 
representation if left in its original state. "Hamlet,'* 
in particular, must be much condensed. Edwin 
Booth's version of it is the longest in use on the 
English-speaking Stage, and that version omits nearly 
one thousand lines of the original. The modern stage 
accomplishes much by picture that the old dramatists 
could accomplish only by descriptive words. Wilson 
Barrett's restorations, most of which were made 
subsequent to the Closet Scene, while they cast 
no new light upon the subject, had the effect of 
retarding the action, and of retarding it exactly 
at a point where the need of greater celerity has 
always been felt. Wilson Barrett, however, was 



HAMLET 367 

an expeditious actor, and his Hamlet was notable 
for celerity. 

The evidence derived from the text of "Hamlet" as 
printed in the First Folio specifically indicates Ham- 
lefs age. He is thirty years old. The proof of that 
is found in the dialogue between Hamlet and the 
Grave-digger. Wilson Barrett's method of dispersing 
that evidence was radical. He declared that it does 
not exist; that the text has been garbled; that the 
original language of Shakespeare has been altered; 
that expressions have been introduced into that con- 
versation between Hamlet and the sexton which 
were not written by Shakespeare, but which were 
invented in order to make the language conformable 
to the requirements of various old actors. He main- 
tained that Hamlet should be presented and accepted 
as a youth of about eighteen; that Shakespeare has 
drawn and described him as "young Hamlet," and 
that thirty is not "young." He had adopted a theory, 
and therefore he would have excluded from the tragedy 
whatever language conflicted with it. That is a con- 
venient method, but its validity is not recognized by 
Shakespeare scholars. The words of the sexton, — who 
says that he has been a grave-digger since "the very 
day that young Hamlet was born," and that he has 
followed his "business," "man and boy, thirty years," — 
are not, indeed, to be taken too literally. "Man and 



368 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

boy," for instance, seems to be no more than a loose 
phrase of common parlance, used by a quaint Hodge 
whose general style of thinking and of speech, together 
with the senility of his fag-ends of mis-remembered 
song, betoken an elderly man — such a man as, in such 
an occupation, would be old at fifty; such a man as 
would be noted rather for sly conceit and dry, wag- 
gish humor than for strict accuracy of reminiscence 
and statement. Still, the text of the Folio, not- 
withstanding its manifest misprints, is a good basis 
of the authentic text of Shakespeare. Its editors, 
Heminge and Condell, affirm it printed from "his 
papers," — declaring that they "have scarce received 
from him a blot" in them, — and therefore a sensible 
reliance should be placed on it. Obvious blunders in it 
ought to be corrected, and in good modern editions 
they mostly are corrected; while reference to the 
Second Quarto (the First, which was understood to 
be Wilson Barrett's stronghold, being accounted 
piratical and untrustworthy) sometimes procures 
clearer and more felicitous readings. But arbitrary 
alterations, made without warrant or proof, as res- 
torations of Shakespeare's original words or meanings 
are never allowable. Wilson Barrett, following a 
dubious conjecture, maintained that the questionable 
line in the Fencing Scene, "Our son is fat and scant 
of breath," was foisted into the text in order to suit 



HAMLET 369 

the need of a fat actor, and he reasoned that if one 
line was inserted to suit one actor other lines may have 
been inserted to suit other actors, and accordingly that 
the player is justified in rejecting any part of the 
text that he fancies to have been thus introduced. 
That is a loose method of reasoning, and if it were 
applied throughout the tragedy it would produce 
singular results. 

Wilson Barrett seemed to suppose that if the text 
were altered at points relative to Hamlet's age all dis- 
crepancies would disappear. That is not true. Indeed, 
there is not one of Shakespeare's plaj^s that is 
either free, or could be freed, from discrepancies. 
Macbeth, for instance, in one of his most essential 
speeches, made at one of the most terrible moments 
of his afflicted life, suddenly ceases to talk like Mac- 
beth and speaks in what is instantly recognized as 
the characteristic voice of Shakespeare, — introducing 
the simile of the "poor player." In "Macbeth" also 
cannon and dollars are mentioned as existing, which 
in his time had not been made. In "King Lear" there 
is mention of men who did not live till long after the 
historic King Lear's time. In "The Winter's Tale" 
a shipwreck occurs on the sea-coast of Bohemia, which 
has no sea-coast. In "Hamlet" reference occurs to the 
University of Wittenberg, an institution that did not 
exist until 1502, long after the period to which the 



370 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

story of the tragedy is supposed to relate. In "Ham- 
let," also, ordnance is shot off, — although in the his- 
toric age of that tragedy cannon were unknown. 
Everything in the play is consonant not with the 
period of its historic basis but with the period of its 
authorship. One of the speeches in it, — one upcfn 
which Wilson Barrett especially relied to prove 
Hamlet's juvenility, — the magnificent lines, 

" Think it no more, 
For nature, crescent, does not grow alone 
In thews and bulk, but as this temple waxes 
The inward service of the mind and soul 
Grows wide withal, ' ' — 

is put into the mouth of Laertes, a commonplace, 
shallow, treacherous young man, unlikely to utter 
any such lofty thought. There again it is the poet 
who speaks, and not the dramatic individual. Shake- 
speare was a great poet as well as a great play-maker, 
and there are times when the copious flow of his poetic 
inspiration deranges the adjustment of details in the 
construction of his plays. Artistic consistency and 
symmetry, indeed, were not wilfully neglected by him. 
In essential things his plays are coherent and har- 
monious. But he was careless of pedantic accuracy, 
and when his soul overflowed, as it often did, he 
heeded not through whose lips the golden torrent 
might break. 



HAMLET 371 

That Hamlet should be regarded as a youth Wilson 
Barrett chiefly deduced from the fact that his mother, 
Queen Gertrude, is young enough for an amour with 
her husband's brother, Claudius. He made the Queen 
about thirty-six years old, instead of about forty- 
eight or fifty. Hamlet was not young enough to suit 
his theory at thirty, but the Queen was young enough 
to suit it at tliirty-six, and therefore could not be 
saddled with an adult son. The actor saw no difficulty 
in the way of making a youth of eighteen the natural 
exponent and voice of an embittered experience, a 
fatal grief, and a majestic contemplative pliilosophy 
such as never yet were or could be possible to boy- 
hood; but he saw an insurmountable difficulty in the 
way of making an elderly woman lapse from virtue, — 
at the solicitation of a lover, obviously younger than 
herself, who is completely infatuated about her, — and 
this notwithstanding she is drawn as soft, sensuous, 
and vain, and is distinctly rebuked by her son, who 
should know her tolerably well, with conduct utterly 
inexplicable and senseless at a time of her life when 

" The heyday in the blood is tame, it's humble, 
And waits upon the judgment." 

The actor did not even reflect that the amour of 
Gertrude and Claudius may have been going on for a 
long time prior to the murder of King Hamlet. 



372 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

It is, surely, more probable that a well-presented and 
handsome woman of forty-eight or fifty, weary of 
her too excellent husband and flattered by the pas- 
sion of a desperate wooer (who thought her so con- 
junctive to his life and soul that he could no more live 
without her than a star could move outside of its 
sphere), should be an amatory sinner than it is that a 
lad of eighteen should be the mature philosopher, the 
profound moralist, the representative thinker, the 
grief-stricken, isolated sufferer, the intellectual, pas- 
sionate, deep-hearted, supreme man whom Shakespeare 
has incarnated in Hamlet. 

In all representations of "Hamlet" the main thing 
is and should be Hamlet himself. The accessories 
are subordinated in the piece and they should be kept 
subordinate in the presentment. Wilson Barrett's 
effort so to assort the ages of the several characters 
that the amatorj'- relationship of Claudius and Ger- 
trude might impress his mind as more rational and 
probable was not, perhaps, unnatural. Hamlet himself 
considered that attachment preposterous, — saying to 
his mother, "At your age you cannot call it love." 
But the brisk actor's effort was an example of mis- 
directed zeal. Nobody cares much about Claudius 
and Gertrude. Their story, and indeed the story of 
the play, in as far as it relates to merely mundane 
affairs, is one that lacks absorbing interest. The 



HAMLET 373 

essential substance being the spiritual personality of 
Hamlet J when an actor undertakes that part the prin- 
cipal end that it concerns him to accomplish is the 
revelation of Hamlet's soul, not the detail of liis 
environment in the Court of Denmark. The adjuncts 
should be approjDriate and the environment should be 
harmonious, for all this helps to preserve an illusion; 
but all this will not avail, unless the actor is able, 
by virtue of the sovereign quality of his nature, to 
reach the height of the great argument and embody 
a true ideal of Shakespeare's conception. 

Even admitting that thirty is not young, whereas, 
in fact, it is, and that "young Hamlet" ought to be 
figured as a lad of eighteen, what good comes of it? 
Wherein is the observer enabled, by that means, to 
bring the experience and signification of Hamlet 
into a more intimate relationship with his own soul? 
Wilson Barrett — w-ho did not and could not look 
or act like a boy — presented him as a full-grown, 
rather athletic man, trying to make himself boyish 
by acting in an alert manner. If an actor were to 
succeed, however, in substituting boy for man, he 
would still be bound to play the part according to 
the configuration and substance of it as those are 
found in Shakespeare's tragedy. The essence of 
Hamlet is corrosive misery, and whether it be misery 
aged eighteen or misery aged tiiirty the personality 



374 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

remains the same. Call him what age you will, his 
words, his conduct, and his nature remain unchanged. 
The mystery that enshrouds Hamlet is not that of 
an inscrutable individuality but that of the agonized 
and half -insane condition of a royal and supreme soul 
overwhelmed with afflicting consciousness of man's 
inexplicable and awful spiritual relation to the uni- 
verse. From the condition of the character^ no matter 
what portal of theory be opened, there is no escape. 
Much had been said about the limit of Hamlet's "mad- 
ness." Much, at one time, was said about the color of 
his hair. It was consistent with precedent that there 
should come a season of quibbling on the subject of 
his age. By and by, perhaps, there will arise a serious 
question as to the length of his nose. Such considera- 
tions are immaterial. 

In Wilson Barrett's performance of Hamlet the 
manifestation of filial love was conspicuous for fer- 
vency and zeal. But filial love is not the sovereign 
charm of Hamlet nor is it the dominant impulse of 
his character, — an overfreighted, discordant harmony 
of all lovable qualities being the one, and the "scruple 
of thinking too precisely on the event" being the 
other. Filial he is, and filial love is a sweet and ten- 
der emotion; but a man may be an affectionate and 
devoted son without being, for that reason, an object 
of especial interest to the world. Venerable age 



HAMLET 375 

overwhelmed with misery is exceedingly pathetic; 
but many a father is abused by his children without 
therefore becoming an image of the colossal majesty 
and ruined grandeur of King Lear. Any old man 
who is the victim of ingratitude and cruelty is an 
object of pity; but Lear's experience is possible only 
to Leafs nature, and, unless that nature be embodied, 
the picture of that experience can produce no ade- 
quate effect. The world does not love Hamlet because 
Hamlet loves his father but because he is Hamlet. 

Wilson Barrett transposed the soliloquy on death 
from the Third Act into the Second. He preferred 
"a siege of troubles" to "a sea" of them, as Edwin 
Forrest did. He referred to a "kzndless villain," 
not a "kyndless" one. He addressed the greater 
part of "To be or not to be" to the circumambient 
air, — a region toward which no human being ever 
gazes when his mind is deeply absorbed in rumina- 
tion. In the parting scene with Ophelia he caused 
Hamlet to make a spasmodic discovery of the furtive 
King, and immediately thereafter a sj^asmodic dis- 
covery of the furtive Polonius — each distinct. He 
indicated Hamlet, at the close of that parting scene, 
as being so passionately attracted toward Ophelia 
that it is only by a tremendous effort of the will that 
he can break away from her; that being, manifestly, 
as false a touch as perverse ingenuity could put upon 



376 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

a mood that incarnates the holiness and pathetic 
majesty of renunciation. He placed the strongest 
possible emphasis upon Hamlet's hatred and de- 
fiance of King Claudius, making the Prince so 
resolute and violent in that animosity that he was left 
without a reason for not having at once accomplished 
his revenge. He cut the King out of "No, his affec- 
tions do not that way tend," and he closed Act Third 
with the Queens recital to her husband of the kilHng 
of PoloniuSj and the King's resolve to send the Prince 
to England. He laid a marked stress upon Hamlet's 
"I essentially am not in madness, but mad in craft," 
seeming to suppose that this, absolutely and finally, 
settles the question of Hamlet's insanity — whereas 
this is, perhaps, one of the most characteristic denote- 
ments of mental aberration that occur in the tragedy. 
Persons who have been shocked and dazed and who, 
while not wholly unbalanced, know themselves to be 
partially so, are sure, sooner or later, to make a point 
of asserting their perfect sanity. The most interest- 
ing of his restorations was that of the passage in 
which Hamlet, in his delirium, weeps over the body of 
Ophelia's father, whom, in his half frantic mood, he 
has slain. "I'll lug the guts into the neighbor room" 
was not spoken; but it ought to be if this scene is 
to be acted at all, in order to give the situation its 
rightful effect. Hamlet has then become entirely 



HAMLET 377 

wild, and he breaks down, in a paroxysm of 
hysterical grief. Wilson Barrett, at that point, 
and at the exit after the Play Scene (although 
the action which he there introduced, of strik- 
ing with a sword at imaginary, lurking foes, was 
extravagant and tended to make the situation ludi- 
crous), came nearer to being Hamlet than anywhere 
else along the whole line of his performance. Every 
person in the play who calls Hamlet "young" or a 
"youth" seemed to have been instructed to sound the 
juvenile designation as with a trumpet; but the King's 
line, "How dangerous is it that this man goes loose," 
was merely murmured. Such were the peculiar 
views and embellishments that, — with laborious effort 
and hard and brittle elocution, — Wilson Barrett dis- 
played as Hamlet. 

At the zenith of his intellectual greatness, the sum- 
mit alike of his maturity and his fame, and after 
studying and acting Hamlet for more than thirty 
years, that great actor, Macready, — a wonderful man, 
to whom the attribute of genius has been unjustly 
denied, by much of modern criticism, for no better 
reason than because he was scrupulously thorough, 
elaborate, methodical, and exacting as an artistic 
executant, — wrote thus of Hamlet: "It seems to me 
as if only now, at fifty-one years of age, I thoroughly 
see and appreciate the artistic power of Shakespeare 



378 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

in this great human phenomenon; nor do any of the 
critics, Goethe, Schlegel, Coleridge, present to me, 
in their elaborate remarks, the exquisite artistical 
effects which I see in this work, as long meditation, 
like long straining after light, gives the minutest 
portion of its excellence to my view." A remark 
of kindred significance was made by Betterton, who, 
at the age of seventy, said to a friend who had 
praised his performance of Hamlet as "perfect": 
"Perfect? I have played Hamlet now fifty years, 
and I believe I have not got to the depths of all its 
philosophy yet." Wilson Barrett, comparatively a 
beginner in Hamlet, was troubled by no such 
scruples. "I have," he declared, "seen Hamlet 
played by every actor who has made a name in 
that character during the last twenty-five years. 
I know all their business and all their traditions. 
. . . When I made up my mind to produce the 
play in the Princess' Theatre in London, I took up 
the book to study it, to try to improve on my old 
performance of the part, and as I read and studied 
I began to realize slowly how mistaken I had been. . . . 
For two years I worked on the play, analyzing every 
line and every word. I arrived at my conclusions 
after years of study, and the character I have con- 
ceived is supported by some of the brightest intellects 
of our time. This is the outcome of a sincere con- 



HAMLET 379 

viction that I am absolutely right." One of those intel- 
lects was the late Clement Scott, a learned, accom- 
plished, competent, and expert dramatic critic. Mr. 
Scott wrote of Wilson Barrett's Hamlet, in an elabo- 
rate paper on that subject, these words: "I did not 
find tenderness, inspiration, or imagination." What 
remains in a personation of Hamlet from which those 
attributes are absent? 



EDWARD SMITH WILLARD. 

Willard possessed attributes as an actor that would 
give importance to his performance of almost any 
part he might have chosen to represent. Intellectual 
concentration, dignity, intensity, weight, power, and 
melody of voice, copious resonance of delivery, the 
capacity of quick transition from quietude to trench- 
ant impetuosity, — those, together with fine stature 
and grace of movement, were blended in him with 
the self-command and the physical strength essential 
to sustain an exacting character at a high tension. 
Those qualities were manifested in his embodiment 
of Hamlet, — a performance which, technically, was 
often excellent, but whiph, for reasons partly con- 
stitutional and partly capricious, was scarcely ever 
true to the poet. 

Willard seemed to have comprehended Hamlet as 



380 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

an absolutely sane man embittered by painful experi- 
ence, and to have determined to represent liim, — in 
the spirit and apart from externals, — as an actual 
person of the present day. His performance was based 
on "realism," and it Vvas executed in the "natural" 
manner. One result only is possible from that method : 
"Hamlet" remains a sufficiently effective play but 
it ceases to be poetry. The element of Hamlet's 
nature that Willard expressed was the slightly cynical 
bitterness of it, — a quality which, as indicated in 
the text, is that melancholy, fretful mingling of 
suspicion and sarcasm often associated with mental 
derangement. Upon the lovely, dreamlike, pensive, 
affectionate, mournful, superstitious, weird, haunted, 
desolate, phantasmal aspects of Hamlefs mind the 
actor cast no light, and, indeed, he seemed to have 
bestowed little or no attention upon that spiritual 
experience which Hamlet was intended to represent. 
He played the part like an actor possessed of it; 
never like a man whom it possesses and whose soul it 
has enthralled. 

Among the many sidelights that are thrown upon 
the character of Hamlet no one is more illuminative 
than his mother's description of him, given at the 
grave of Ophelia. After the fit of madness has passed 
his patience is that of the female dove: "his silence will 
sit drooping." Hamlet has occasional accessions of 



HAMLET 381 

frenzied strength, and he is capable of sudden, though 
intermittent, tumults of action; but, for the most 
part, he drifts and dreams, and, although he never, 
for even an instant, ceases to suffer, a dominant 
attribute of his nature is gentleness. Hamlet means 
spiritual miser}\ He does not grieve simply because 
his father has died, or simply because his widowed 
mother has precipitately married his uncle. He 
grieves, — and in that grief he contemplates suicide, 
before the apparition of his father's ghost, — because 
his mind is overwhelmed with long brooding upon 
the awful mystery of the spiritual environment. He 
deeply desires that his relations with that appalling 
mystery may be adjusted. He is everywhere baffled. 
His mind is unhinged. And in that condition of 
agony which conventional criticism would, probably, 
call "morbid" he receives the shock of a visitation 
from beyond the grave, and after that experience he 
is always in the border-land between reason and 
madness. No actor can gain more than a superficial 
success in Hamlet unless he has comprehended that 
form of possible human grief, and unless he possesses 
the intrinsic personal charm that can turn sorrow 
into enchantment. The slender, handsome gentle- 
man whose elocution neither domestic infelicity nor 
the paternal spectre can disturb is not Shakespeare's 
Hamlet; neither is the latter-day, agnostical cynic. 



382 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

Willard did not indicate sympathy with Hamlet's 
spiritual condition nor even a perception of it. He 
was refined, picturesque, interesting, dramatic, mod- 
ern; a smooth, middle-aged gentleman; a fluent and 
flexible actor; a model of executive efficiency and 
even of fiery resolution; never the haunted, bewildered, 
dejected, mournful, half -crazed Prince — never the 
authentic oracle of that great message for the soul: 
"If it be now, 'tis not to come; if it be not to come, 
it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come: 
the readiness is all." Hamlet wins and sways by 
condition, not by deed, and therefore the more an 
actor of liim strives after stage-effect the further he 
drifts away from the truth. Willard's Hamlet was 
replete with effective embellishments of professional 
mechanism, but it lacked the essential soul. It is 
possible, however, that the actor's purpose was to 
make himself comprehensible, by commonplace minds, 
as a grim and caustic cynic and an apt, scheming, 
expeditious avenger, of the purely practical kind. 
His advent as Hamlet had been heralded with 
official promise of "a performance entirely in keep- 
ing with the realistic movement of the age," — 
which is exactly what Hamlet ought never to be. 
It is not, perhaps, surprising that, with such a 
design, the haunted Prince should first have turned 
his back upon the phantom and then violently pur- 



HAMLET 383 

sued it, and that, in the supreme scenes of the killing 
of Polonius and the rebuke of the Queen, he should 
have caused no effect of frenzy, nor the least feeling 
of awe, nor the least sense of pathos. 

Willard's stage version of "Hamlet" differed in some 
respects from all others known to the theatre. In the 
Second Scene of Act First, after Hamlet had been 
apprised of the apparition, the King and courtiers 
re-entered, and the subsequent scene, between Laertes, 
Ophelia, and Polonius, passed in the throneroom. By 
that expedient the customary front-scene was obviated. 
Act Second was amplified by the introduction, from 
Act Third, of the soliloquy on death, "To be or not 
to be," together with the subsequent colloquy between 
Hamlet and Ophelia. Those passages were inserted 
after "Look, where sadly the poor wretch comes, 
reading." Hamlet was made to conceal himself behind 
curtains, so that he could overhear, in Act Third, 
the King's instructions to Hosencrantz and Guilden- 
stern, and also the King's soliloquy, before the vain 
attempt at prayer. There was a curtain after the 
prayer and the Third Act was played in two parts. 
Act Third was made to comprise the first three 
scenes of Act Fourth and to close with the King's 
adjuration as to "the present death of Hamlet" in 
England, — all the parts being so blended that there 
were no front-scenes. Act Fourth included, without 



384 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

change, the scene of Ophelias madness, that of the 
passion of Laertes, that of Horatio and the letter, and 
that of the compact between Laertes and the King; 
while, after the Queen had described the drowning of 
Ophelia, soldiers brought in the dead body, upon a 
bier of hurdles, and it was attended by Laertes, weep- 
ing. Act Fifth was divided by a curtain, after 
Ophelia's burial, — at "This grave shall have a living 
monument," — and the Osric and Duel Scenes were 
made to constitute a Sixth Act, which passed in the 
courtyard of the castle. The fencing-match was 
played with both "rapier and dagger." A jester, or 
court-fool, was introduced, but he did not speak. The 
double ghost was used, in Act First, in order to give 
effect to the fugitive character of that illusory spectre, 
at the exclamatory words " 'Tis here!" " 'Tis here!" 
" 'Tis gone!" The text was freely cut, especially in 
the lines allotted to Horatio, Polonius, and the Queen. 
There were no new readings. Hamlet said "siege of 
troubles" and not "sea." Horatio said "dead waste" 
and not "dead vast." Hamlet said "he wafts me 
still," and "where thrift may follow feigning," instead 
of "fawning," and he spoke more than is usually 
spoken of the speech about Pyrrhus. He likewise 
repeated in an eager whisper the speech of Lucianus, 
when doing the murder, and instead of "mobled 
queen" Hamlet said "inobled queen," — a reading 



HAMLET 385 

taken from the First Folio. Some of those expedients 
were new; others had long been in use. Hamlet, in 
stage custom, has usually kept a wary watch upon the 
King; Ophelias dead body has been produced at the 
end of Act Fourth; the double ghost is old; and the 
*^7wobled queen" was adopted by Edwin Booth, in 
1878, and is so printed in his published "Prompt 
Book" of "Hamlet," in every edition of it after the 
first; and it probably is correct, — although "mobled 
(dishevelled) queen" occurs in both the Quartos, 
1603 and 1604, and in the Second FoKo, 1632. The 
most material change made by Willard was the trans- 
ference of passages from Act Third to Act Second, 
an alteration for which he had an actor's reason — 
that it enabled him to create a strong effect at an 
earlier time in liis performance. No Shakespeare 
scholar could approve of it. In the Queen's apart- 
ment the portrait of the dead King Hamlet was 
placed behind a curtain, which Hamlet drew back to 
reveal it. Willard sought the earlier prints of Shake- 
speare, the Quartos, in order that he might obtain his 
text from a fountain-head; but it should be remem- 
bered that the First Quarto is probably piratical, 
that the Second is dubious, and that all are confused; 
while the Folio of 1623 is marred with errors, which 
the later ones only conjecturally emend. 



386 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

HERBERT BEERBOHM-TREE. 

Herbert Beerbohm-Tree performed as Hamlet, for 
the first time in America, at Abbey's Theatre, now, 
1911, the Knickerbocker, on February 21, 1895. His 
impersonation was that of an expert actor; marked 
by distinction, variety of expressive pose, abundance, 
if not excess, of gesture, fluency of elocution, — not- 
withstanding the impediment of a sHght lisp, — and an 
appropriate mystical incertitude; but it was shallow, 
devoid of poetic emotion, finical in fibre, often marred 
by inappropriate alertness, and it was metallic in 
execution. Of Hamlet as the exponent of fatal 
misery, sequent on long brooding over the awful 
mysteiy of the spiritual environment of man, there 
was no sign. Every actor of Hamlet has a special 
ideal and a favorite theory. Mr. Tree particularly 
denoted his grasp of the subject in his treatment 
of Hamlet's madness, — making the Prince by turns 
mad and sane, yet alwaj^s keeping him near the 
borderland between lunacy and reason. At the 
climax of the Play Scene he made him delirious, and 
his strident clamor was theatrically effective. In 
his treatment of Hamlet's love for Ophelia he was 
not felicitous. His action, indeed, was gracious and 
sweet, — the action of furtively kissing Ophelia's hair 
and of pitifully casting flowers upon her grave, but. 



HAMLET 387 

since Hamlet's love for Ophelia is a memory, and 
not a passion, those expedients were unsuit- 
able and untrue. No actual lover urges his sweet- 
heart to go to a nunnery. Even before Hamlet^ 
with his shocked brain and broken heart, has detected 
the weak, docile, frightened Ophelia in her forced 
falsehood he knows that for him there can be no 
refuge in love for woman and no reliance upon it. 
His misery is corrosive, bitter, and immedicable. 
Mr. Tree placed much stress upon Hamlet as a fellow- 
student, — upon his "consonancy," his kindness to his 
associates at the University, — but comradeship is 
a minor element in Hamlet's nature. The actor's 
postures were often effective, notwithstanding his 
angularity, but the full effect of sublimity, terror, 
grief, pathos, passion, and delirium cannot be pro- 
duced by an actor whose face lacks mobility, whose 
temperament is cold, and whose voice is hollow and 
inflexible. Mr. Tree declared that it is advantageous 
for an actor to be substantially ignorant of the stage- 
traditions of Hamlet, — the usages of earlier repre- 
sentatives of the character. That is an unfortunate 
and mistaken view of the subject, because the traditions 
of the stage are almost always valuable, and they are 
especially valuable to a representative of Hamlet. 
The readings and business that were approved by 
Betterton, Kemble, Kean, Macready, Phelps, Booth, 



388 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

and Irving ought at least to be known and considered 
by younger actors. Capricious innovation is not a 
sign of acute intellect but of poor judgment. Mr. 
Tree shifted the soliloqu)^ on honor and inaction, 
expunged im^^ortant words from the part of the Fi?^st 
Grave-digger^ provided a new term of sepulchre for 
Yorick's skull, muddled the matter of H anile fs age, 
curtailed the words of Laertes, omitted Osric, and 
absurdly concluded the tragedy with a chorus of dis- 
tant angels, — those "flights," presumably, which are 
mentioned in the beautiful apostrophe of Horatio. 



EDWARD HUGH SOTHERN. 

Mr. Sothern appeared as Hamlet for the first 
time on September 17, 1899, at the Garden Theatre, 
New York, and since then he has repeated his 
performance in many cities throughout America. 
There is high critical authority for two opinions 
relative to the acting of that part, — one, by Hazlitt, 
that it is the most difficult of all parts for an actor 
to personate; the other, by Macready, that a total 
failure in it is of rare occurrence. Both opinions 
have been confirmed by experience. Stage history 
records only a few demonstrably faithful embodiments 
of Hamlet, but it mentions many that were acceptable 
because respectably meritorious. Mr. Sothem's per- 



HAMLET 389 

formance was found to belong in the latter class. 
It was, at its best, intelligent, conscientious, and 
sincere in spirit, picturesque in appearance, and 
methodical and evenly sustained in execution. Some 
of its defective points, apparent when it was first 
presented, were subsequently repaired — and that is 
true of every performance of the part which has 
endured at all — but it did not become authoritative 
and imposing. Denial of Mr. Sothern's proved 
capability in his profession would be foolish and 
wrong: he is a fine comedian and an admirable "all 
'round" actor, but he has not shown tragic power, 
and Hamlet, without tragic power, although he may 
interest and please an acquiescent multitude, cannot 
impress informed judgment and is not important. 
Mr. Sothern's lack of tragic power became con- 
spicuously evident in the first meeting with the Ghost, 
the scene of his parting with Ophelia, the delirium 
which attends the climax of the "Mouse Trap" play, 
and the frenz}'^ of mingled horror and exultation at 
the killing of Polonius. Those situations require 
much more than the expertness of trained talent. 
The misery of Hamlet, the corrosive anguish which 
has sapped the foundation of his mind and which 
steadily, inexorably procures his ruin, was not even 
indicated. The text was volubly spoken and was 
made to convey its superficial meanings, but no con- 



390 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

viction was imparted of the intense mind and deep 
heart which are behind the words. The personality 
was finical, undistinguished, commonplace. Filial 
tenderness and reverence were well expressed, as also, 
especially in the Closet Scene, were moral fervor 
and a withering scorn of evil-doing. In his later 
representations of Hamlet, when he apostrophized the 
Ghost, in the Closet Scene, and when he uttered 
Hamlet's dying words, Mr. Sothern was mournfully 
pathetic, striking a true note. The elocutionary 
artifice which, in earlier days, he habitually used, of 
sudden, explosive, exclamatory delivery, had been 
discarded, and his radically unsympathetic voice 
evinced certain good results of training and practice, 
— possibly, also, of chastening experience. In his 
stage business there were many peculiarities. After 
Hamlefs first interview with the Ghost, at the end 
of the scene, "Let's go together," he stood still and 
posed, facing the audience, in the obvious glare of 
a white limelight. In the scene of the espial he placed 
Hamlet's discovery of the eavesdroppers, Claudius 
and Polonius, at the first "Go thy ways to a nun- 
nery," not at "now receive them, No, not I," or 
at "Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind," 
— at one or the other of which points it certainly 
belongs, if it is to occur at all. In the scene in 
which Hamlet is brought into the King's presence 



HAMLET 391 

and interrogated as to the concealment of the corpse 
of Polonius the King, previous to the Prince s 
entrance, was caused to pick up a naked sword from 
the floor (not evincing any curiosity as to how it 
came to be there) and place it on a convenient chair, 
and when Hmnlet said, "Seek him i' the other 
place yourself," he suddenly seized that sword and 
attempted to attack Claudius with it, to kill him. 
In the same scene, at "I see a cherub that sees them," 
Hamlet was caused to show a miniature of his father, 
indicating that lamented parent as the "cherub." In 
the Duel with Laertes, Hamlet was made to receive 
a wound in his wrist, to give an astonished glance 
at it, to glare at his opponent, perceiving that the 
foil of Laertes was not "buttoned," immediately to 
engage with and disarm his adversary, to set his 
foot upon the fallen foil, and then to tender his own 
weapon to Laertes, which that treacherous person 
was constrained in courtesy to accept, according to 
"the rules of the game." In Mr. Sothern's earlier 
presentments of "Hamlet" the indispensable passage, 
"Now might I do it, pat, now he is praying," was 
omitted; later it was restored. At first he used the 
advent of Fortinbras, — customarily used on the 
European Continental Stage and always, wherever 
used, productive of tediousness, — but later he dis- 
carded it. One radical defect of his Hamlet, — never 



392 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

cured, and, from deficiency of imagination and of the 
glamour of genius, incurable, — was its complete lack 
of weirdness, of any intimation of being haunted. 
As a whole the performance, whether in its crudity 
at first or its maturity at last, was circumscribed 
within the conventional limits of stage utility. It 
was, however, largely attended and sometimes fer- 
vently praised. Every actor has his audience and 
Mr. Sothern's is a large one. 



JOHNSTON FORBES-ROBERTSON. 

Johnston Forbes-Robertson adopted Hamlet into 
his repertory in 1897, and his impersonation of it has 
been accepted and admired in many cities of Great 
Britain and America. He acted it for the first time in 
New York on March 7, 1904, at the Knickerbocker 
Theatre. Mr. Forbes-Robertson is an actor of signal 
ability, fine achievement, and large experience, — 
acquired in more than thirty years of almost continual 
practice of the dramatic art; he early profited by 
professional association with that versatile, powerful, 
thorough actor, Samuel Phelps, of whom, in 1886, 
he wrote and published an instructive biography; he 
had the great advantage of acting under the example, 
leadership, and guidance of Henry Irving; he is an 
artist, a student, a writer, and a thinker; he has 



HAMLET 393 

played many kinds of parts, and played them all 
well ; and it would be strange indeed if, in the maturity 
of middle life, he were not able to give a performance 
of Hamlet that should impress even the most exigent 
observers as proficient and respectable. Such his 
performance was, — the careful, methodical, competent 
achievement of a practised performer, following an 
established method and walking, for the most part, 
in a traditional path. 

The customary denotements of Hamlet's agitated 
mental condition were duly provided, together with 
customarj^ stage adjuncts that heighten and enforce 
the elegant desolation of that afflicted Prince, and help 
to diffuse the "luxury of woe." The raiment, as usual, 
was of a beauteous dusky hue, and very becoming. 
The make-up was immaculate, and thus in the highest 
degree creditable to those sartorial and tonsorial 
artists who have alwa5^s manifested such consum- 
mate taste and skill at the Stage Court of Denmark: 
a miserable man, who sees ghosts and contemplates 
suicide, necessarily must be, and always is, more than 
commonly scrupulous as to his raiment and personal 
appearance. The facial aspect was that of emaciation, 
appropriate to an agonized being and significant of 
his suffering. The text of the tragedy, — aside from 
necessary excisions and capricious restorations, — was 
correctly spoken. The Ghost Scenes were made spec- 



394 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

tral with loneliness and limelight. The Play Scene 
was deftly carried to a telling climax, — although there, 
as at the greater climax in the Queen's closet, at "Nay, 
I know not! Is it the king?'' Mr. Forbes-Robertson 
manifested more the intention than the faculty of 
tragic power. Reynaldo was retained, providing a 
little more of the tedious senility of Polonius, and 
Fortinbras was restored, to point the contrast between 
the vacillating man of thought and the expeditious 
man of action. 

Mr. Forbes-Robertson's ideal of Hamlet was, as far 
as comprehensible, seen to be, in most particulars, 
correct, but it was not made absolutely clear, and his 
expression of it did not, at any point, except in 
Hamlet's interview with Ophelia^ immediately after 
the soliloquy on death, exhibit imperial felicity of 
art. At the last of that colloquy, however, he 
manifested, exceedingly well, the wounded heart, 
the disordered mind, the seething passion, the wild, 
indefinite purpose, and the bitterness and scorn 
that are constituent elements of Hamlet's par- 
oxysm. Neither there, nor elsewhere, though, did he 
denote that Hamlet is a man who has passed beyond 
the love of woman, and who, more than once, passes 
across the limit of sanity — as when, for example, he pur- 
poses to take such a vengeance on his enemy as will 
condemn the soul of the monarch to eternal torture 



HAMLET 395 

in the depths of hell. The excision of an essential 
part of Hamlefs speech in the Prayer Scene almost 
vitiated, certainly much perplexed, the j)urport of 
the embodiment. As to the larger significance of 
the character, aside from its various values as a 
vehicle of dramatic expression, — meaning its j)iteous 
exemplification of finite man, dazed, mystified, and 
overwhelmed in the hopeless endeavor to pierce the 
mystery of his infinite environment in the awful uni- 
verse of God, — Mr. Forbes-Robertson's presentment 
of Hamlet made no reference, nor did it indicate that 
this had been considered. The actor was seen to be 
introspective, intellectual, pensively sombre, endowed 
with sensibility and refinement, and professionally 
capable: but the performance, though uninspired, 
was, nevertheless, vastly superior to the desecrations 
of Hamlet that have been exhibited on our stage from 
Germany, Italy, and France, such, for instance, as 
the elderly, brawny, muscular, and fat, or the fantas- 
tic, wizened, and vapid Hamlets of such actors as 
Salvini, Rossi, Sonnenthal, Mounet-Sully, and Mme. 
Sarah Bernhardt. It lacked the authoritative pre- 
dominance of a great personality; and in the actor's 
effort to be modern, colloquial, and expeditious its 
manner dwindled to that of the preceptor, — as in 
the argumentative, expository utterance of the great 
speech about death, the instructions to the Players, 



396 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

and the dialogue with the graveyard clown; but it 
was sustained and sincere, and it was characterized 
by dignity, feeling, and grace. 

There is a silly notion, for some time current and 
frequently voiced, that no admirer of Edwin Booth 
as Hamlet ever did, or ever could, admire any other 
actor in that part. Nothing could be more absurd. 
It is not admiration of Edwin Booth that chills enthu- 
siasm in the observer of Johnston Forbes-Robertson, 
or Edward H. Sothern, or Robert Mantell, when 
they are performing as Hamlet. It is the lack, on 
the part of those performers, and others like to them, 
of the Hamlet temperament. JNIr. Forbes-Robertson, 
in this character, had fine moments, but, as a whole, 
his modern, conversational, impetuous image of Ham- 
let did little more than to show the various values 
of the character as a vehicle of dramatic performance. 
Hamlet means misery; not the woe of black crape and 
purple velvet; but the lethal misery from which there 
is no relief and no refuge but the grave. The actor 
who does not know this and cannot make this felt 
has not fully comprehended the subject and cannot 
truly act the part. Every actor has his limitations 
and, as the Oriental proverb wisely says: 

' ' Though it poorer be, or richer, 
You can only fill your pitcher ! ' ' 



HAMLET 397 



FOREIGN HAMLETS ON THE AMERICAN STAGE. 

The acting of foreign performers, when they assume 
characters of Shakespeare, is necessarily hampered 
by their natural, unavoidable ignorance or misappre- 
hension of the spirit of the English language. The 
characters of Shakespeare, substantially, do not exist 
for them. There is an indefinable elusive quality in 
every language, especially in the poetry of every lan- 
guage, that cannot be transferred into any other. 
Foreign actors, — French, German, Italian, Spanish, 
and so following, — when they appear in translations 
of Shakespeare's plays, only approximate to the con- 
ception of the English poet, always leaving some- 
thing that is essential unexpressed. The actors from 
Continental Europe who, in their professional tours 
of America, have presented themselves as Hamlet 
have invariably failed to show anything more than a 
faint, shimmering semblance of Shakespeare's con- 
ception of that character. Each has presented an 
ideal of it, and each, in doing so, has exemplified, 
more or less efficiently, the resources of trained 
executive art; but in every instance, however meri- 
torious in execution, the ideal has been conspicuously 
wrong. The predominant, pervasive characteristic of 
the Continental method of acting is "realism. 
Hamlet has been assumed on the American Stage 



/ 
5j y 



398 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

by many Continental actors; chief among them 
being Daniel Edward Bandmann, Bogumil Dawison, 
Charles Fechter, Tommaso Salvini, Ernesto Rossi, 
Ludwig Barney, Friedrich Haase, Adolph von Son- 
nenthal, Jean Mounet-Sully, Sarah Bernhardt, and 
Ermete Novelli. The performances given by the 
German actors, although generally tedious, are remem- 
bered as more nearly consonant with Shakespeare than 
those given by actors from Italy and France. The 
presentments of Hamlet by Fechter, Mounet-Sully, 
and Sarah Bernhardt, considered as attempts to por- 
tray the character delineated by the English poet, 
were fantastic and sometimes ludicrous. 



DANIEL EDWARD BANDMANN. 

One of the most talented actors of foreign origin 
and style who have appeared in America was Daniel 
Edward Bandmann (1840-1905), a performer whose 
youth promised much but whose maturity achieved 
little. He acted in both German and English. 
His first appearance in America, as an English- 
speaking Hamlet, was made at Niblo's Garden, New 
York, on September 29, 1863, and his performance 
awakened interest and caused discussion. Bandmann 
was a stalwart, muscular person, having an Hebraic, 
aquiline face, sanguine complexion, small, dark 



HAMLET 399 

eyes, and abundant long, dark hair, curled and 
brushed back from the brow. His manner was 
animated, eager, ostentatious, ebullient, and he pos- 
sessed much vitality and enthusiasm, — that wild 
emotional fervor which, tinged with sentimentality, 
is often characteristic of the race from which he 
sprang. His voice was strong, but neither deep nor 
sympathetic. In nature he was selfish, crafty, and 
insincere. As an actor, whether in youth or man- 
hood, he lacked repose, self-command, and mental 
concentration. His presentment of Hamlet, — both at 
the first, and later when given at the Standard 
Theatre in New York, on October 2, 1879, — was 
disfigured by a strenuous striving to be " original '* 
by means of capricious innovation. He spoke all the 
hysterical words of Hamlet, after the disappearance 
of the Ghost, in the final Platform Scene, and he 
restored the passage, usually omitted, in which 
Fortinhras appears. The former of those restora- 
tions was commendable, because in those fevered 
apostrophes of the Prince to the phantom, — grief 
and horror culminating in delirium, — the keynote 
is struck of Hamlet's dazed, wavering, distracted 
condition. Bandmann, however, while expressing a 
certain bitter pathos, fell far short of indicating 
Hamlet's agony and mental shock. Then, and there- 
after, like most actors in the part, he was merely 



400 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

executive, evoking no response of sympathy. His 
Hamlet was a young man arrayed in elegant mourn- 
ing attire, sorrowful for the demise of his father, 
ashamed of his mother's indecency of hasty nuptial 
contract with his uncle, and embittered by immediate 
circumstances; but the foundations of his mind were 
unshaken; no spectre haunted his thought; no tinge 
of madness colored his melancholy; no sense was im- 
parted by him of the isolation and remediless misery 
of a great soul overwhelmed and bewildered by the 
awful mystery of life and death. In short, he did 
not possess either the mind or the temperament of 
Hamlet, and his performance stopped short at pro- 
fessional utility. One piece of his stage business 
well indicated its general character; when the Ghost 
appeared, in the Closet Scene, he started backward 
and fell, speaking thereafter in a recumbent position. 



BOGUMIL DAWISON. 

Bogumil Dawison came to New York in 1866, 
and on December 10, that year, at the Thalia Theatre 
(which had been known as the Bowery, and later 
was again so designated), he acted Hamlet, for 
the first time in America. Dawison was a tall, slender 
man, having a leonine head, somewhat suggestive of 
that of Daniel Webster; clear, penetrating, expres- 



HAMLET 401 

sive dark eyes, regular features, a demonstrative, 
commanding carriage of the body, and an unusually 
sweet though not a strong voice. There was no fire 
of inspiration in his performance of Hamlet, but there 
was a clear ideal, however questionable, combined with 
felicity of executive art. His presentment was both 
robust and sentimental, full of animation, and con- 
tinuously diversified by stage business, but it was 
devoid of the introspection and the desolate grief 
which, consistently sustained and continuously obvious, 
are intrinsic attributes to the character and insepa- 
rable from a right performance of it. Hamlet, as 
acted by Dawison, was an absolutely sane, self- 
contained person, occasionally simulating insanity. 
The more sympathetic, effective parts of his perform- 
ance were the level speaking, — as in Hamlet's collo- 
quies with Horatio, before the Play Scene and in the 
church-yard, — the aspect, infrequent but right when- 
ever assumed, of meditation, the denotement of the 
Prince's sad, forlorn humor, — as in the descant on 
"Yorick's skull," — and the depth of filial feeling and 
mortal anguish, in the Closet Scene, wherein the 
actor's assumption of Hamlet reached its highest 
eminence of truth and of effect. In pathos Dawison 
was exceptionally strong, yet that element of his 
temperament was only fitfully elicited by the part 
of Hamlet. The actor was foremost, not the per- 



402 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

sonation. When Hamlet was told of the apparition 
he at once became wildly excited, flurried, gesticu- 
latory, neither dazed nor appalled, and during Ham- 
let's scenes with the Ghost he busied himself in 
maintaining a continuous trembling of the body and 
in making pantomimic responses to the words of the 
spectre, so that the attention of his auditors was 
diverted equally from the phantom and the Prince 
and concentrated on the industrious devices of the 
expertly agitated performer. Once, when the Ghost 
was describing the murder committed by Claudius, 
Dawison's Hamlet wrapped his cloak around his 
head, as though to shut the horrible spectacle from 
his sight, — an obstructive and therefore hurtful device. 
Discreet ingenuity of business is sometimes exceed- 
ingly effective, but the obvious expedient for the 
actor of Hamlet, at that point, is a state of horror- 
stricken absorption, intense rigidity, motionless atten- 
tion, tremendous, concentrated feeling, — such as would 
be denoted by the ghastly face, the fixed, entranced 
gaze, — and involuntary, almost breathless exclamation. 
Dawison, however, was an exceptionally interesting 
actor, — the most interesting German tragedian, 
indeed, who has visited America in our time. The 
version of "Hamlet" in which he appeared was 
mutilated in the Fourth and Fifth Acts, — a fault 
unusual with the Germans, who, as a rule, give too 



HAMLET 403 

much of Shakespeare's text, in their stage versions, 
rather than too Httle. 



CHARLES FECHTER. 

Charles Fechter, who mostly turned "Hamlet" 
into prose, told my friend Lester Wallack, by 
whom the fact was mentioned to me, that, in his 
opinion, the Prince's soliloquy on life and death 
ought to be omitted in the representation, because 
an impediment to the action. He spoke it, but he 
spoke it rapidly and unimpressively, as though 
"making a few remarks," not at all as though an 
overburdened soul were uttering itself in an involun- 
tary, irrepressible strain of thought. Fechter was an 
actor of rare ability in romantic drama, such as is 
typified by "Ruy Bias," "Monte Cristo," "The 
Corsican Brothers," "Obenreizer," and "The Lady 
of Lyons." He was an artist of the French school, 
the original representative of Armand Duval, in "La 
Dame aux Camelias," and on the Paris stage he 
gained brilliant distinction, following in the track of 
Frederic Lemaitre. He spoke English, but his 
speaking of it was broken and much marred by a 
singsong cadence, and his delivery of English blank 
verse, accordingly, was abominable. At the time of 
his advent on the American Stage he was a stout 



404 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

person, of gross aspect, and incapable of looking like 
Hamlet, even had he been capable of speaking English 
verse, — which he was not. His acting of the Prince, 
as of all other parts in which he appeared, was 
authoritative and expert. As Hamlet he presented 
an impetuous, lachrymose, highly explosive French- 
man. He wore a suit of solemn black, with a heavy 
gold chain about his neck, to which was attached a 
miniature of the Prince's deceased father. He made 
the face fair and somewhat florid, disfiguring it with 
a finical moustache and a very small, two-pointed 
beard. His purpose was said to be imitation of the 
appearance of the conventional portrait of the Christ. 
His eyelids were reddened, as though from excessive 
weeping. On his head was a wig of flaxen hair, to 
signify that Hamlet was a Dane, it being incorrectly 
assumed that all ancient Danes were of the blond 
type. His "business" throughout the performance 
was expositive of a purpose to be "natural" and 
to illustrate the behavior of every-day life. His 
delivery of the text was colloquial. In the Ghost 
Scenes he was manifestly familiar with spectres, 
as is customary with Continental actors, indicating 
neither awe, terror, nor pathos, and in the church- 
yard colloquy with the Grave-digger he seated him- 
self on a convenient flat tombstone and nursed one 
of his knees, with the nonchalance of a Rijp Van 



HAMLET 405 

Winkle. Fechter's performance, nevertheless, was \ 
much commended, admirers of it not hesitating to 
declare that the audience had now seen the part for 
the first time correctly represented. Fanny Kemble, 
in her "Recollections," mentions a conversation which 
occurred at a London dinner-table, at the height of 
the Fechter fever in that city. One of the diners, a \ 
gentleman, asked a lady whether she had seen Fechter j 
as Hamlet. "No," she replied, "I have not; and I do 
not think that I should care to hear the English blank 
verse spoken by a foreigner." The inquirer gazed 
thoughtfully upon his plate for a moment, and then 
he said, "But Hamlet was a foreigner, wasn't he?" 
That silly question illustrates the ignorant and 
extravagant commentary that was elicited by the 
acting of Fechter, an ebullient and ridiculous enthu- 
siasm caused almost solely by the fact that he was 
a man of foreign extraction and an actor habituated 
to a foreign method. Neither the energy, the vitality, 
nor the professional skill of the performance could 
be questioned, but, in view of its generally fan- 
tastic details and the turbulent, repellent nature which 
it disclosed, the claim that was widely and arrogantly 
made for Fechter, of colossal genius and super- 
eminent excellence as a Shakespearean actor, and, 
particularly, as an expositor of Hamlet, certainly ' 
was unwarranted. Essential constituents of the part 



406 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

are spiritualized intellect, haunted, overwrought imagi- 
nation, exquisite sensibility, sombre dignity, a waver- 
ing mentality, piteous isolation, and bitter scorn, com- 
mingled with a forlorn, fitful, moody humor: not one 
of those attributes could be discerned in Fechter's 
performance. He interested the observer, but it 
was not by presentment of the personality of Shake- 
speare's Hamlet; it was by his tumultuous fervor and 
his professional expertness. He was animated; he was 
picturesque; he created and sustained plentiful tur- 
moil; and his representation was embellished with 
peculiarities of stage business — so numerous and often 
so eccentric that they monopolized attention. He 
was continually in motion, and he delighted in stage 
tricks and innovations. In his arrangement of the 
play Horatio and Marcellus, in the second Platform 
Scene, Act I., Sc. 4, were made to enter from one 
side of the stage, and Hamlet to enter, alone, from 
the other side, — for the reason that the Prince had 
said to them, in a precedent colloquy, "Upon the 
platform, 'twixt eleven and twelve, I'll visit you"; 
and that device was deemed commendably ingenious. 
The stage direction in the First Folio is: "Enter 
Hamlet, Horatio, and Marcellus.'' Common sense 
would prescribe that they should enter together, as 
there is no form of greeting exchanged between them, 
such as would naturally be incident to a meeting of 



HAMLET 407 

the Prince of Denmark with a courtier and a soldier 
of the guard. In the course of Hamlefs colloquy with 
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, after the Play Scene, 
Act III., Sc. 2, several musicians, who had been sit- 
ting in a gallery during the performance of "the 
Mouse Trap," came upon the main stage, filing out, 
in order that the Prince might, — exclaiming, "Oh, 
the recorders," — take from one of them the pipe 
with which he proceeds to tantalize his treacherous 
"friends." When he entered to speak the solemn and 
beautiful speech on life, death, and after death, he 
appeared with a drawn sword in his hand, — the most 
preposterous of all expedients that possibly could be 
adopted in that situation, unless, indeed, an actor 
should make Hamlet enter, like Harlequin, jumping 
through a hoop. In Hajnlefs touching scene with 
Ophelia^ on the other hand, he wisely and com- 
mendably omitted the old business of making the dis- 
tracted, agonized Prince aware of the espial of the 
King and Polonius. In the Closet Scene with the 
Queen he threw away his sword, after stabbing 
the hidden Polonius, by way of intimating to the 
affrighted lady that no physical harm to her was 
intended, and when the remorseful woman would 
have expressed maternal affection by embracing him 
he sternly held out before her his dead father's picture, 
pendent on his breast: his theory was that the Queen 



408 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

should be regarded as an accomplice with Claudius 
in her husband's murder. In his arrangement of 
the last scene there was an elevated gallery, accessible 
by two flights of stairs, one at each end, and, at the 
climax of the duel. King Claudius, endeavoring to 
escape, fled up one flight, wliile Hamlet rushed up 
the other, meeting the fugitive monarch in the centre 
of the gallery and there slaying him. All such mat- 
ters, while very well in their way, are, after all, in- 
considerable, and only "limbs and outward flourishes," 
beside the central question: whether an actor does 
or does not get inside of the character and impersonate 
it. Every actor of experience invents or adopts devices 
of expression, and such means are sometimes illumi- 
native and sometimes admirable, but much more is 
essential in a presentment of Shakespeare's Hamlet 
than dexterity of business and proficiency of treatment. 
Form is one thing: substance is another. Both 
Montgomery and Milton wrote verse on sacred sub- 
jects, and the verse of the one is as correctly con- 
structed as is the verse of the other: but Montgomery 
is very far from being Milton. Fechter, in his treat- 
ment of Hamlet, was as enterprising and expeditious 
as Julius Csesar in his conquest of Gaul, and therein 
he completely misrepresented the part; j^et his acting 
of it was extolled as perfection, even by writers of 
such massive literary authority as Charles Dickens 



HAMLET 409 

and Wilkie Collins. "From the first appearance 
of the broken glass of fashion and mould of form," 
said Dickens, "pale and worn with weeping for his 
father's death, and remotely suspicious of its cause, 
to his final struggle with Horatio for the, fatal cwp, 
there were cohesion and coherence in Mr. Fechter's 
view of the character . . . Its great and satisfying 
originality was in its possessing the merit of a dis- 
tinctly conceived and executed idea." "Cohesion and 
coherence" no doubt there were, and there was an 
"idea," but the idea was radically wrong, and there- 
fore the "cohesion and coherence" signified nothing. 
Quite as much "cohesion and coherence," furthermore, 
had been manifested in many performances of Hamlet 
given on the British Stage prior to that of Fechter, 
and, finally, Dickens's certificate of excellence was 
somewhat damaged by the fact that Fechter omitted, 
deeming it an impediment to the action, Horatio's 
attempt to drink the poison, and cut out Hamlet's 
"final struggle with him for the fatal cup." "From 
Macready downward," said Wilkie Collins, "I have, I 
think, seen every Hamlet of any note and mark dur- 
ing the last five and thirty years. The true Hamlet 
I first saw when Fechter stepped on the stage. These 
words, if they merely expressed my own opinion, it 
is needless to say, would never have been written; 
but they express the opinion of every unprejudiced 



410 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

person under fifty years with whom I have met." 
Collins, unfortunately, did not define "the true Ham- 
lef and there were contemporaneous presentments 
of Hamlet which he had not seen, — ^notably those of 
Edward L. Davenport and Edwin Booth. I remem- 
ber Collins as a dear friend, and I remember that he 
was possessed of at least one unprejudiced and directly 
opposite opinion relative to Fechter's performance of 
Hamlet — namely, mine. It is significant that the 
greatest admiration for that performance was elicited 
from persons themselves remarkable for inclination 
and ability to produce, in art, effects of intense 
sensation, and from impressionable women. The 
accomplished Kate Field, another enthusiast of 
Fechter's acting, wrote a particular record of his 
performance and stage business in the part, which 
is a valuable contribution to the chronicles of the 
acted drama, but her writings about Hamlet exhibit 
only a superficial knowledge of the subject, and her 
remarks on Fechter show far more enthusiasm than 
judgment. "The world has seen Hamlets" wrote 
George Henry Lewes, "in which the execution was 
masterly, while the conception was so weak as to be 
dishonoring to Shakespeare. Such was, in some 
respects, the Hamlet of Fechter." 




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HAMLET 411 

TOMMASO SALVINI. 

Tommaso Salvini, the greatest of the Italian actors, 
appearing as Hamlet, presented a stalwart, puissant, 
dominant, capable man, who would have disposed of 
uncle Claudius, without the least hesitation or diffi- 
culty, in the twinkling of an eye. His massive frame, 
his leonine demeanor, his iron firmness, and his aspect 
of resolute, overwhelming executive faculty combined 
to make him the literal opposite of everytliing that 
Hamlet is or means. He wore the customary black 
garments and did much of the conventional stage 
business, but he was invariably physical, never 
spiritual, — a man of action, "four-square to opposi- 
tion," formidable, robust, somewhat treacherous, com- 
petent to every trial, master of every situation, and 
pursuant, with needless, tedious indirectness, of a 
direct purpose of revenge. He was not princely in 
bearing, he was not dejected in the 'havior of his 
visage, he was not weighed down by the sorrow of 
a broken heart and a despairing mind, and there was 
nothing in his soul o'er which his melancholy sat on 
brood. He manifested a lively antipathy toward his 
uncle and a stern disapproval of his mother's con- 
duct, making both feelings too obvious. His mind 
had received no wrench, suffered no abiding shock. 
He simulated insanity, and he did so with a degree of 



412 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 



histrionic skill entirely worthy of Hamlefs interest 
in the acted drama and impeccable authority as a 
stage manager, but why such a giant of will, resource, 
and faculty should have felt constrained to simulate 
any condition, or have hesitated to clear the Castle 
of Elsinore and the domain of Denmark of all impedi- 
ment to his inheritance, his marriage, and his imperial 
sovereignty he intimated no reason. His sinuous course 
of conduct appeared to result not from incertitude, 
but from a natural propensity to deceit. His delivery 
of the profound soliloquy on life, death, and the some- 
thing after death was finely rhetorical in utterance, 
and was accompanied by impressive gesture, but it 
seemed no more relevant to the state of his mind than 
a discourse might have been on the binomial theorem 
or the differential calculus. We met, in his dressing- 
room at the old Academy of Music, New York, 
immediately after he had given his first performance in 
America of Hamlet (October 2, 1873). The late 
Maurice Grau, then his manager, made us acquainted 
with each other, and we exchanged greetings. The man 
whom I saw (he had not yet laid aside the black- 
velvet stage-dress of the melancholy Dane) looked like 
a gladiator. His performance, although mechanically 
efficient and worthy of a thoroughly practised actor, 
had been a complete failure, as it continued to be. 
In parts that he comprehended, such as King Saul, 



HAMLET 413 

Conrad, and Niger, Salvini was a great actor, but 
he could not, and never did, act Shakespeare's Hamlet, 
His pubhshed remarks on the part, — if his perform- 
ance had been insufficient, — show that he did not 
even comprehend it; for he designates the Prince as 
"the adipose, lymphatic, and asthmatic thinker of 
Shakespeare," a notion derived from words spoken 
by Queen Gertrude in the fencing scene: "He's fat 
and scant of breath." The right reading of that 
remark, as long ago suggested, is, probably, "He's 
faint and scant of breath." All that is said in the 
play, descriptive of Hamlet, aside from that single 
observation, indicates a man of exceptional personal 
beauty, marred, indeed, to attenuation by the ravages 
of sorrow, but essentially retentive of nobility, 
symmetry, and involuntary elegance. In the Fencing 
Scene, notwithstanding that he has "been in continual 
practice," the Prince becomes momentarily heated and 
wearied by exertion in combat with a superior swords- 
man whom he feels to be playing with him. Nothing 
could be gained dramatically by suddenly describing 
"the glass of fasliion and the mould of form" as a 
''fat" man. At the moment the obvious purpose is 
merely to effect a pause for the introduction of stage 
business as to the "drink." The silly conjecture long 
current that the line was provided to make the sit- 
uation comportable with a fat actor is too trivial for 



414 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

serious consideration. Whatever else Hamlet may be, 
he is — of all tilings! — neither adipose, lymphatic, nor 
asthmatic! It may be true, as readers are frequently 
informed, although no evidence to prove it has been 
presented, that the Latin races, dramatically, excel 
the Anglo-Saxon in artistic feeling and capability, 
but, meanwhile, it would be rational to remember, in 
considering the character of Shakespeare's Hamlet, 
that, such as it is, it was drawn by an Englishman and 
that, hke all his characters, it is essentially English. 
Also it would be wise to observe the decisive fact that 
Hamlet is a poetical figure in a poem. 

It is singular, but it is true, that Salvini evinced a 
deeper insight into the subject of "Hamlet," and a 
more definite grasp of it, in the awful solemnity of 
his assumption of the Ghost than in his laborious per- 
formance of the Prince. He acted the Ghost only 
once (April 30, 1886), at the old Academy of Music, 
in association with Edwin Booth as Hamlet, by way of 
returning a compliment to Booth, who had acted lago 
to his Othello. In his personation of the Dane 
Salvini merely embodied a man named Hamlet whose 
domestic affairs were sadly disordered, who suf- 
fered under the distemper of love and disappoint- 
ment, who saw a ghost with much the same self- 
possession that would have attended his meeting 
with an expected acquaintance, and who died a 



HAMLET 415 

violent death, after undergoing much vicissitude of 
fortune, assuming many and various attitudes and 
conditions, and causing much disturbance. His panto- 
mime was invariably expressive of his ideal, but his 
ideal was in^elevant to Shakespeare's Hamlet, and 
was never impressive, except as the clever assumption 
of the central part in a prolix and awkwardly con- 
structed drama of situation. In that personation, 
however, as in every other performance that he gave, 
he manifested, to the delight of all competent 
observers, his thorough knowledge and absolute com- 
mand of the teclmicalities of his art and of the means 
of creating stage effect. Rapid transition was one 
of his favorite expedients, employed in sudden assump- 
tions of posture, quick turns of the head, abruptly 
suspended movements, and swift, piercing glances, as 
well as in business. He did not, as so many Con- 
tinental actors have done when trying to act Ham- 
let, place particular stress on innovations. He had 
seen Irving as Hamlet before he ever played that 
part in England or America, and he had observed 
the business used in Irving's production of the 
tragedy, and to some extent he copied what he had 
seen. One piece of business which I believe was 
invented by him was the making of the Prince, a 
moment before his death, endeavor to draw Hotatio's 
head close, so as to kiss him, and, being blinded by 



416 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

the mists of death, to search, feebly, with a tremulous 
hand, for the face of that dear comrade, his only 
friend in all the world. According to the custom of 
Continental actors who have appeared as Hamlet he 
turned his back upon the GJiost, when freeing him- 
self from Horatio and Marcellus, as they endeavor 
to restrain him from following that apparition. His 
finest action, though it was not original, was shown 
in the Play Scene, at the tremendous climax of which, 
as the affrighted Claudius flies from the throne, he 
sprang wildly up from the floor, where he had been 
lying, tore asunder the leaves of the manuscript which 
he had been feverishly gnawing while the play was 
in progress, scattered them in the air, and with a 
voluble outburst of frenzied, exultant rage fell 
into Horatio's arms. That manuscript business was 
invented and first used by Kemble, and was copied 
by later actors, among them Fechter. The chief 
element that Salvini contributed to the situation 
was that of prompt and tremendous energy. He 
did not make Hamlet lovable, nor, except in the 
moment of his death, pathetic. His parting scene 
with Ophelia was full of grimace; his Closet Scene 
with the Queen was full of sound and fury. A man 
more competent than Salvini's Hamlet to conduct 
all his affairs to a successful conclusion has never 
been shown upon our stage. 



HAMLET 417 

ERNESTO ROSSI. 

Ernesto Rossi, who on the Italian Stage had long 
been distinguished for his acting of Hamlet^ played 
that part for the first time in America, at Booth's 
Theatre, New York, November 1, 1881. He was 
welcomed with enthusiasm and he gained troops of 
admirers. He was a robust man, heavy and muscular; 
he did not and could not look like Hamlet, and, 
considered according to the English-speaking or -read- 
ing standard relative to Shakespeare's tragedy, he 
did not and could not act Hamlet. The person whom 
he presented under that designation was massive and 
portly. The Queen's statement that her son is "fat" 
has been a solace to many obese performers. The 
royal lady, it has been alleged, was caused to interject 
that remark in the Duel Scene because a corpulent 
actor, — Burbage, as is most frequently declared, — 
chanced to be playing Hamlet, and because the fact of 
his fatness, which must have been visible throughout the 
first four acts of the play, had not, until the last scene 
of the Fifth Act, been observed. That assumption is, 
manifestly, nonsensical. The condition of fatness is 
at variance with all the characteristics of Hamlet, 
physical and mental. No reasonable person wants 
blubber with the Melancholy Dane. No evidence has 
been furnished that Burbage was fat. Davies says 



418 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 



that he was a thin, dark man. "An infinite deal of 
nothing" has been uttered relative to the physique 
of Hamlet, and it seems as though a period ought 
to be put to it. He was a blond, liirsute, blue-eyed 
Berserker; he was a slender Gaul; he was middle- 
aged; he was a youth of eighteen; he was a paragon 
of muscular strength; he was asthmatic and lymphatic. 
The fact is that he is not any of those things as 
drawn in Shakespeare's play. Queen Gertrude 
intimates that he was short in the wind, a character- 
istic that protracted observation has failed to dis- 
cover in stage representation of him. Rossi pre- 
sented him in a state of bulk and endowed him 
with such prodigious impetuosity of conduct as must 
have enabled him to terminate the royal career of 
King Claudius in much less time than is required to 
act the play. There was not the slightest indication 
of the essential spirit of Hamlet in any part of his 
performance, except in the delivery of the soliloquy 
on suicide, and remembrance of it recovers no concrete 
image but only particulars of the execution. Rossi's 
Hamlet was as much and as wildly agitated on hearing 
of the apparition as he was on seeing it. At first 
sight of the Ghost he fell backward with a wild cry. 
Later his bearing evinced reverence, and he seemed 
especially impressed by the monition of the spectre 
not to contrive any punishment of the Queen, He 



HAMLET 419 

did not indicate any conclusion as to Hamlefs mental 
state, — whether that of perfect sanity or of incipient 
derangement. His management of his eyes was par- 
ticularly fine, as part of the mechanism of acting. He 
caused an effect of pathos, touching the feelings of his 
audience, by showing grief through an air of sarcastic 
humor in the scenes with the courtiers. He incorrectly 
caused the words of Polonius, "Look, whether he has 
not changed color and has tears in 's eyes," to be 
spoken as a reference not to the Player, but to 
Hamlet. His method was full of those quick transi- 
tions which are always effective and sometimes sur- 
prisingly illuminative. In the scene of Hamlefs 
parting from Ophelia he caused the Prince's dis- 
covery of Polonius and the King to occur near the 
middle, not near the beginning: Hamlefs paroxysm 
of madness can be regarded as actual, and as caused 
by Ophelia's repulse of him, signified by her precedent 
refusal to see him and her present return of his gifts, 
or as fictitious, assumed on his perception that he is 
being furtively watched. Rossi's acting in that scene 
was expressive of Hamlet as a lover, — despairing, 
indeed (and elderly), but ardent. In the Play Scene 
he caused the Prince to indulge in profuse antics: he 
was insolent to the King, offensive to Polonius, harsh 
and violent toward Ophelia, generally obnoxious. 
When, at the climax of the play, the King fled from 



420 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

the throne Hamlet intercepted him with remarkable 
celerity, and they screamed in each other's face. 
In the Closet Scene the killing of Polonius was so 
badly done as to be entirely ineffective; Hamlet, after 
much bluster toward his mother, threw away his 
sword, to signify that no harm to her person was 
intended, and crowned his melodramatic proceedings 
by tearing the miniature of Claudius from the Queens 
bosom and grinding it beneath his heel, in a spasm 
of picturesque stage fury. The killing of the King 
was effected with bowl as well as dagger, — Hamlet 
forcing him to quaff the poisoned liquor, — and with 
such fury it was felt to be a signal mercy that the 
enraged Prince did not close the proceedings by danc- 
ing on the royal stomach and taking the anointed 
scalp. Rossi, in a word, applied what is called "real- 
ism" to poetry; and realism, applied to "Hamlet," is 
desecration. 

SONNENTHAL AND BARNAY. 

Adolf von Sonnenthal made his first appearance 
in America on March 9, 1885, at the Thalia Theatre, 
New York, as Uriel Acosta, and on March 20 he 
appeared as Hamlet, giving one of the most insignifi- 
cant performances of that part ever presented by an 
actor of proved ability and distinguished rank. His 
Hamlet was a stout, heavy, lymphatic young man. 



HAMLET 421 

dressed in black and crowned with a wig of yellow 
hair. He was called a Prince but his demeanor was 
never princely. At times he was splenetic, as in Ham- 
lets colloquy with Polonius; at other times violent, as 
in the colloquies of the Prince with the courtiers; not 
at any time noble, or introspective, or haunted, or pa- 
thetic, or even interesting. The motive of all Hamlet's 
proceedings, as indicated by him, seemed to be merely 
animal, not intellectual. In level speaking, though 
fluent, he was dull; in soliloquy, monotonous. His 
Hamlet displayed no "antic disposition," no insanity, 
whether actual or assumed, but complacently domi- 
nated alike himself and his circumstances. In the 
Ghost Scenes he manifested fright and consternation, 
but was neither awed nor able to communicate any- 
thing like a thrill to the imagination; yet the terror 
which is inherent in those Ghost Scenes is potent 
enough to make Hamlet himself almost a spirit 
entranced. In the deliveiy of the speech ending 
"Foul deeds will rise, though all the earth o'erwhelm 
them," he displayed not only a foreboding of the 
horrible truth that his father had been murdered but 
a complete conviction of it, yet on being apprised of 
that circumstance by the Ghost his amazement knew 
no bounds. There was lack of articulation in the 
whole anatomy of the performance, and nothing about 
it caught pleased attention except adroitness in the 



422 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

use of stage business. Sonnenthal was a careful, 
good actor, but completely out of place in Hamlet, 
His production of the tragedy was, in a way, unique. 
The scenery ranged from the garish opulence of an 
Eighth Avenue barber-shop to the tawdry luxury of 
a railway-station lunch-room, with an occasional sug- 
gestion of a country church. The Ghost was a 
brightly caparisoned phantom that gleamed in the 
attendant limelight like a burnished warming-pan 
and told its doleful tale from the middle of a burning 
bush. The throneroom, when arranged for the 
"Mouse Trap" play, disclosed a miniature stage, with 
the Player-King airily perched on a modern step- 
ladder, so that Hamlet, when delivering his instruc- 
tions to the Players, could, and did, sit on a step of 
that useful piece of furniture, at the feet of the 
mock monarch. The actor of Polonius suggested a 
typical German professor, — possibly of chemistry. 
King Claudius, much resembling Holbein's King 
Henry the Eighth, changed his raiment after the 
Play Scene, and tried to pray in the semblance of 
the Wandering Jew. Queen Gertrude's apartment 
was provided with two full-length and very 
hideous portraits of her two spouses, and when 
the Ghost penetrated into that bower of nuptial bliss 
he abruptly took the place of his "counterfeit present- 
ment" and remained within the picture frame. The 



HAMLET 423 

Closet Scene was much prolonged, and the corpse of 
Father Polonius, visible beneath the arras, becoming 
weary of the protracted proceedings, presently con- 
veyed itself away in a manner more expeditious than 
impressive. At the end of each scene a red curtain 
was lowered over the stage. 

Herr Barnay was an actor of fine presence and 
exceptional executive ability, but his field was that 
of the heroic drama. He gave a noble performance 
of Marc Antony, in a German version of "Julius 
Cagsar." In Hamlet, acting that part for the first 
time in America on April 5, 1888, at the Thalia 
Theatre, New York, he was distinctly a failure. On 
the occasion named his distinguished compatriot 
Ernst von Possart cooperated with him, appearing 
as Polonius. It is not worth while to follow in detail 
the course of his misdirected ingenuity as Hamlet. 
When he came upon the stage to speak the speech on 
suicide Fechter carried a drawn sword: when Barnay 
came on he carried a dagger — the "bare bodkin," — as 
though he were then debating the expediency of 
puncturing himself. At the end of the Closet Scene 
he embraced the Queen, One incident of the rep- 
resentation alone sufficed to indicate Barnay 's natural 
incongruity with Hamlet and to illustrate the arti- 
ficiality of his method: between the Prince's first 
meeting with the Ghost and the colloquy which pres- 



424 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

ently ensues between them a tableau curtain was 
lowered, and the actor appeared before it, to acknowl- 
edge the plaudits of his admirers, before resuming the 
awful interview by following the spectre to "a more 
removed ground." 



JEAN MOUNET-SULLY. 

The representation given by Jean Mounet- Sully, 
under the name of Hamlet, was an interesting mani- 
festation of that actor's personality and of his dramatic 
skill. Though "Hamlet" as it exists in English 
does not exist in French, adaptations of it exist in 
that language and one of them was performed by 
the French actor and his company, at Abbey's 
Theatre, New York, on April 9, 1894. Hamlet j as 
interpreted by Mounet- Sully, was an amiable young 
man who loved liis father, grieved for his father's 
death, saw his father's ghost, and thereafter pre- 
tended to be a grinning, skipping lunatic. A study 
of the profound spiritual misery of Hamlet, the 
misery of a mind that is overwhelmed and distraught, 
would, no doubt, have been attempted by the eminent 
French actor had that theme been existent in the 
French language, and probably the result of his 
study would have been well expressed, within the 
limitations of his nature and his artistic method. The 



HAMLET 425 

substance of the character could not reasonably be 
expected in a performance that aimed only to present 
those elements of it which can be made melodramatic. 
Mounet- Sully showed himself to be proficient in the 
art of effective expression, but in mind and spirit 
he e^dnced slender calibre, and the Hamlet of Shake- 
speare was seen to be beyond his perception. He 
was the graceful personification of an affectionate son 
and a melancholy lover. His expression of awe and 
terror was sometimes picturesque, notwithstanding a 
peculiar obliquity in his eyes. He illumined the Play 
Scene with sufficiently illustrative business. His kill- 
ing of Polonius was accomplished with alacrity and 
vociferation, — the inquiry, "Is it the king?" (''Serait- 
ce pas le Roi?''), being incidentally added, as of no 
special import. During much of the performance he 
was lachrymose, not afflicted; and in no part of it did 
he manifest the princely personality of Hamlet, or 
his preordination to the desolate eminence of haunted 
delirium, or liis corrosive grief. The pleasure imparted 
by his personation was that of gazing upon fine 
attitudes, supple movements, flexible gesticulation, 
diversified and sometimes felicitous facial expression, 
abundant stage business, and a deft management of 
well chosen pictorial drapery. In nothing was 
Mounet- Sully as fine as in chivalrous delicacy and 
romantic grace. His manner, accordingly, was sym- 



426 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

pathetic and charming, however inappropriate, at 
moments in Hamlet's colloquies with Ophelia. The 
Hamlet of Shakespeare has ceased to love Ophelia 
and has passed beyond love of woman, but that is not 
the French view of the subject, — a view in which with- 
out amour there can be no vie.. The actor was impress- 
ive in his expression of reverence for the ideal of the 
father and of grieved, tortured affection for the dese- 
crated holiness of the mother. Filial feeling was, in 
fact, the keynote of Mounet- Sully's performance of 
Hamlet. The radical defect of it was deficiency of high 
and right ideal, — a presentment of Hamlet not in the 
relation of finite man dazed by an environment of 
infinite mysteiy, but only as a character circumscribed 
within the limits of a play. The less material, though 
disillusionizing, blemishes of it were a dapper, frisky 
demeanor, an artificial elocution, — ranging through 
many varieties of growl, shriek, whine, and patter, — 
melodramatic action, a general shallowness, a finical 
pettiness, more characteristic of an elegant French 
dandy, a fluttering exquisite, than of a haunted, heart- 
broken, miserable man, tired of life yet hesitant to 
die. His Hamlet turned his back upon the spectre, 
and likewise personally officiated in the mechanical 
work of moving chairs and platforms, when making 
ready for the Play Scene and giving instnictions to 
the Players. After the Ghost Scene he fainted and 



HAMLET 427 

fell. At the climax of the Closet Scene he followed 
the Ghost off the stage, out of the Q,uee^'s room, 
and screamed, with hysterical terror, unseen, in the 
passage. The performance was a singular exhibition 
and is memorable only for singularity. 

FEMALE HAMLETS. 

Many women have appeared as Hamlet, incited to 
that adventurous endeavor by the romantic allurement 
of the part, and encouraged in it by the critical assur- 
ance, which has been mistakenly urged, that the 
character is more feminine than masculine. It is 
difficult to understand why Hamlet should be con- 
sidered feminine, seeing that he is supereminently 
distinguished by a characteristic rarely if ever dis- 
cerned in women: namely, that of considering con- 
sequences, "of thinking too precisely on the event." 
The propensity to love, to depend upon another heart 
for affection, sympathy, and happiness, is no more 
characteristic of woman than it is of man. It can be 
doubted, furthermore, whether woman is nearly as 
capable as man has often shown himself to be, and 
as Hamlet shows himself to have been, of forming and 
cherishing and adoring, even to idolatry, an ideal 
of celestial loveliness and excellence in a human being 
of the opposite sex. Hamlet is a man of originally 



428 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

sweet, gentle, affectionate nature, and in no way 
feminine, unless it be feminine to be of an exquisitely 
sensitive temperament. 

Mrs. Siddons acted Hamlet, and to some extent 
was approved in the part by audiences in Edinburgh 
and in Dublin, but she never acted it in London and 
no particular account of her performance has been 
found. Among the female Hamlets who have been 
conspicuous on the American Stage were Mrs. 
Bartley, Mrs. Battersby, Eliza Marian Trewar (first 
Mrs. Shaw, afterward Mrs. T. S. Hambhn), Ellen 
Bateman, Fanny Wallack (Mrs. Charles Moor- 
house), Charlotte Cushman, Charlotte Crampton, 
Charlotte Barnes (Mrs. E. S. Connor), Clara 
Fisher (Mrs. James G. Maeder), Alice Maniott 
(Mrs. Robert Edgar), Emma Waller (Mrs. Daniel 
Wilmarth Waller), Susan Denin, Mrs. Frederick B. 
Conway, Julia Seaman, Marie Seebach, Winnetta 
Montague, Adele Belgarde, Louise Pomeroy, Anna 
Dickinson, Nellie Holbrook, and Sarah Bernhardt. 
Miss Cushman played Hamlet only a few times, 
and with no striking effect. For abnegation of sex 
her Cardinal Wolse.y, not her Hamlet, was the more 
important performance. On one occasion, in Boston, 
she wore the Hamlet costume of Edwin Booth (it 
must have been a tight fit), and her close friend and 
fervent admirer, Lawrence Barrett, who was in the 



HAMLET 429 

cast that night, as Laertes, wrote that "she gave a 
novel color to that complex character." Eliza Shaw 
was better in it, and by some observers was highly- 
commended, but she gained her authentic fame as a 
woman, not as a man, and in high comedy, not in 
tragedy. Charlotte Barnes, with her frail physique 
and mournful, wandering eyes, languished through it, 
wearing a Vandyke garb, speaking the words, doing 
the business, and conveying an impression of refine- 
ment and poetic sensibility. Miss Seaman's endeavor 
was a jack-knife affair, and so was that of Miss 
Belgarde. Miss Marriott, whom I saw in the part, 
at Wood's Museum, New York, March 29, 1869, 
was earnest in endeavor but rather gloomily comic in 
effect. In person Miss Marriott distantly resembled 
Charlotte Cushman: her figure was massive and her 
demeanor somewhat masculine. Her face was broad 
and square, and her features could well express cogent 
emotion. Her voice, although it had then been 
worn by hard use, was sympathetic and strong. She 
evinced, in all her acting, a cultivated mind and a sen- 
sitive temperament. Her assumption of Hamlet 
manifested careful study, intention of sensational 
effect, and pleasing skill. Her delivery of the text 
was fluent and at times it was fraught with deep 
feeling. Her action occasionally became excessively 
violent, as when, in the Play Scene, she crept toward 



430 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

the King's throne, and later when she dashed "his 
picture in little" to the floor. Her method was 
invariably conventional. In the Ghost Scenes she 
created no sense of the atmosphere of mystery and 
dread that should accompany such a portrayal of 
human contact with preternatural environment. Ham- 
let's intrinsic misery was not suggested. The per- 
formance was an ordinary theatrical effort by an 
experienced old hand, typical of scores of other such 
performances, which, stopping short at mechanical 
proficiency, do not transcend the intelligence of a 
careless multitude, are irrelevant to the poet's con- 
ception, and possess no intrinsic importance. Miss 
Anna Dickinson, emerging as the Melancholy Dane, 
appeared at the Fifth Avenue Theatre, New York, 
March 20, 1882, attired not in "customary suits of 
solemn black," but in purple raiment, and presented 
an obvious female, somewhat resembling a bojdsh 
male. Her demeanor was neither semblable for a 
man nor graceful for a woman, and it was devoid of 
dignity. Her countenance expressed force of char- 
acter and earnest purpose. Her voice, while unsym- 
pathetic, proved adequate in level speaking, but in 
passages requiring fervor it was feeble, and at all 
times it was monotonous. Her reading of the text 
was intelligent, but her delivery was oratorical, and 
there was, in her elocution, the twang of the con- 



HAMLET 431 

venticle. Many words were clipped and slurred. 
There was little or no impersonation, the performer, 
instead of the character, being conspicuous, and only 
a slight sense was signified of Hamlet's supernatural 
environment. The expression of the mingled emotions 
of Hamlet relative to Ophelia was constricted by a 
metallic, inflexible manner. The killing of Polonius 
was done in a perfunctory way, Hamlet seeming to 
be afraid of his own sword. In brief. Miss Dickin- 
son's attempt, while ambitious, conscientious, and 
earnest, proved a mournful failure. She had been 
trained to lecture, not to act, and she had not liberated 
herself from the trammels of forensic education. 

( ^ 

SARAH BERNHARDT— " ALAS, POOR HAMLET!" 



The several female Hamlets whom I have seen 
were either affectedly and unpleasingly mannish or 
they were experimental, confused, indefinite, and 
insignificant. It was a bad day for "the glass of 
fashion" when some misguided essajasts began to 
call him "feminine" and the ladies heard of it. The 
most recent and the most pretentious female endeavor 
to act Hamlet which it has been my misfortune to 
see was that of the great French actress Sarah 
Bernhardt. 

Mme. Bernhardt appeared in the part for the first 



432 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

time, on May 20, 1899, at the Theatre des Nations, 
Paris, and she presented herself in it for the first 
time in America, on December 25, 1900, at the Garden 
Theatre, New York, and gave a performance well 
calculated to commend itself to persons interested in 
the study of freaks. Hamlet has been roughly 
handled on the stage, but a long remembrance of 
his sufferings does not recall a time when he was 
more effectively crucified than he is in the French play 
and was by the French actress. The translation of 
"Hamlet" that was presented by Mme. Bernhardt and 
her associates is in prose. It was made by Eugene 
Morand and Marcel Schwob, and it has been pub- 
lished, with a preface and notes, in a volume of 254 
pages. The French prose is level, smooth, and 
respectable, and it imparts about as clear a percep- 
tion of Shakespeare's poetry as might be derived from 
listening to the whistle of the wind through a bung- 
hole. It is not quite such a desecration as the Italian 
"Hamlet" (fabricator unknown) that was inflicted 
on the community by Signor Salvini, but as remarked 
by Mercutio " 'T will serve." It consorts well with 
Abraham Haj^ward's English prose translation of 
"Faust," and in that congenial category of sinful 
things it can be left. 

In Mme. Bernhardt's presentment of Hamlet there 
were peculiarities of apparel and likewise several 



HAMLET 433 

paltry novelties of business. The dress consisted of 
a black silk tunic, embroidered with fur; black-silk 
tights; a white ruffle, around the neck; a jewelled belt; 
a black cloak, so arranged as to depend from the 
left shoulder; a rapier, steel-hilted, in a black scabbard, 
with an ornamental chain; a flaxen-haired wig 
(adopted in accordance with the usage conspicuously 
introduced by Fechter, but an unwarranted, objec- 
tionable device, because Hamlet ought, for every 
reason, to be dark), and velvet footgear. The face 
was made up beardless and pale. The figure was 
padded, so as to make it look as much as possible 
like that of a man, but in this respect no illusion 
was created, — the actress looking exactly like what 
she was, a thin, elderly woman, somewhat disguised. 
Novelties of business were Hamlefs knocking 
together of the heads of Rosencrantz and Ghiilden- 
stern, in the course of his first talk with them; 
his kicking of the shins of Polonius, and his catching 
of a fly on the nose of that statesman; together with 
the transformation of the dead King's portrait into 
a ghost, in the Closet Scene, — first done on the Ameri- 
can Stage by James Henry Hackett, — and the 
Prince's obtainment of the play-book of "The Mur- 
der of Gonzago" from the First Actor, — who con- 
veniently carried his whole repertory in his belt. 
An electric light was used in the King's oratory. 



434 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

and a silly intention was indicated, on the part of 
Hamlet, to use the long golden hair of Ophelia as a 
screen, through which, in the scene of "the Mouse 
Trap" play, to observe the face of the King. At 
the climax of that scene Hamlet was made to thrust 
a lighted torch before the monarch's face, — ^but that 
wonderful exploit had long been stale. In the 
presence of the Ghost Mme. Bernhardt's Hamlet 
was as valiant as a gander; the business, indeed, 
involved a kneeling posture, some time after the spirit 
had vanished, but Mme. Bernhardt's Hamlet was a 
man who had seen whole regiments of spectres, and 
to whom the haunted rampart of Elsinore was about 
as impressive as the Traitor's Gate was to Artemus 
Ward, — who thought as he gazed on it "that as many 
as twenty traitors might go in abreast." The counsel 
to the Players was spoken on a little stage set for the 
presentment of the interlude. That business was 
also stale, having been done by the German trage- 
dian Sonnenthal. The method of exchange of 
weapons by Hamlet and Laertes might have seemed 
tolerably fresh, if Mr. Sothern, having seen or heard 
of the device, had not previously introduced it in his 
presentment of the tragedy. At the climax of the 
duel Hamlefs sword-hand was made to show a 
trace of blood, and the Princess face and person 
were made to reveal pathological symptoms of the 



HAMLET 435 

approach of death by poison. Mme. Bernhardt's 
Hamlet died standing, and his reeling body was caught 
by Horatio; and subsequently it was borne away, — to 
the general relief, — upon huge shields. Much of the 
business was tedious and all of it was laboriously 
capricious. The English Stage learns notliing from 
such treatment of Hamlet as that to which the part 
was subjected by Mme. Bernhardt. To use one of 
Shakespeare's similes, there was no more poetry in 
her Hamlet than there is milk in a male tiger. 
Technical knowledge and executive efficiency were 
apparent; but actors who appear as Hamlet are 
expected, — not unreasonably, — to reveal something 
more than the usual resources of histrionic experience 
and skill. 

With reference to the character of Hamlet a fact 
most essential to be continuously considered, — for the 
reason that it indicates all the other facts, — is that 
this prince, when first encountered, is found to have 
been contemplating suicide, out of temperamental 
propensity. His "prophetic soul" has warned him to 
beware of Claudius; but his "prophetic soul" has 
not revealed to him either his father's murder, his 
uncle's guilt, his "seeming virtuous" mother's sin, 
or the ominous contiguity of the dead Kimg's ghost. 
He is the born victim of melancholia, the preordained 
genius of sorrow. He typifies misery, and his misery 



436 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

is congenital and inherent. No circumstances are con- 
ceivable under which such a man could be happy. 
Whatever the conditions might be, he would react 
upon them and make them either gloomj^ or tragical. 
His very smile casts a shadow: his laughter is sadder 
than tears. A preternatural visitation, divulgent to him 
of the afflicting secret of a horrible and loathsome 
crime, shocks his already dejected and drifting mind, 
and thereafter his will is shattered, and anything like 
steadfast, continuous action, — notwithstanding his 
feverish and incessant mental activity, — becomes impos- 
sible. It might, indeed, be contended that Hamlet^ 
in the last analysis of him, defies question; that no 
skill of vivisection avails to define and designate him: 
but, on the other hand, it certainly is true that Hamlet 
is a man not of action but of thought; a man over- 
whelmed and dazed with the immensity and perplexity 
of his spiritual surroundings; ravaged with grief, self- 
disgust, and disgust at humanity; who has sur\dved 
love and become completely isolated; who continually 
resolves and as continually reasons away every oppor- 
tunity of executing his resolution ; a man around whom, 
and somewhat because of whom, all things crumble 
into ruin, and who ends in total failure; and yet a 
man to be viewed with profound sympathy by all 
persons who are capable of thought. 

In the tragedy of "Hamlet," obviously, the dra- 



HAMLET 437 

matic values are secondary to the meaning of the cen- 
tral character and to the solemn purport of the poet's 
commentary upon life, death, and the something after 
death. It should, accordingly, always be treated 
not simply as drama but as poetry, philosophy, and 
spiritual truth. The emergence of a female as Hamlet 
has always had the effect of futile experiment; semi- 
masculine women, such as Charlotte Cushman, Miss 
Marriott, and Mrs. Waller, could, and did, measurably, 
impart at least an impression of sincerity and weight; 
but they were never consistently impressive as Hamlet; 
and, indeed, of the women who have played the part 
in America no one has really succeeded in it. 
The female Hamlet must, of necessity, always sug- 
gest either an epicene hybrid or a paltry frivolity. 
Women sometimes succeed in creating an actual, if 
fleeting, illusion of masculinity in presentments of 
dashing young cavaliers, or of roguish girls masquer- 
ading as such; the tradition of Peg Woffington as 
Sir Henry Wildair still survives, and old play-goers 
still remember with delight the admirable grace and 
charming swagger of Mrs. John Wood as Donna 
Hippolyta; but the great, serious male incarnations 
of dramatic poetry have never been, and they never 
can be, adequately impersonated by females. Women 
as Hamlet are as absurd and out of place as they 
would be as Macbeth, or as men would be as Ophelia 



438 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

or Queen Katharine.. Here, as elsewhere in drama, 
"Nature's above art" in that respect. 

Hamlet means great intellect, the wildness of genius, 
a glowing imagination, a deep heart, exquisite sensi- 
bility, and, over all, and permeating all, an essentially 
poetic temperament — grace, nobility, and grandeur in 
ruins. Mme. Bernhardt, an eccentric, volatile, ardent, 
capricious Frenchwoman, not possessed of those attri- 
butes, and speaking a language into which it is 
absolutely impossible that Shakespeare's essential 
poetry and wonderful lingual felicity should be con- 
veyed, no more resembled Hamlet than a wax figure 
resembles a living being. She was recognized as an 
expert actress, even a genius, but some things 
are beyond the reach of the most expert and the 
most inspired of the female sex. Hamlet^ without 
the sex, the temperament, the poetry, the meaning, is 
not Hamlet at all — and that was the image presented 
by Mme. Bernhardt: dapper, shrill-voiced, antemic, 
vapid, and yet full of fussy, shrewish energy; a 
splenetic, loquacious stripling, now gloomily glower- 
ing, now chattering like a parrot, at all points whim- 
sical and at no moment impressive. The killing of 
Polonius was completely insipid, — whereas, suitably 
done, it is one of the most tremendously tragic points 
in the whole wide range of drama. There was no 
delirium, nor even a hint of mental shock, after the 



HAMLET 439 

Ghost Scene. The madness was mere mimicry; and, 
like all other Continental plaj^ers who have acted 
Hamlet, Mme. Bernhardt's Prince was easily able 
to turn his back upon the Ghost and to pass through 
the most awful of all conceivable ordeals of mortal 
experience with airy nonchalance and a fantastic 
laugh. 

Mme. Bernhardt not only presented the person 
whom she supposed to be Hamlet but printed her 
views of the character; and, if her superficial and expe- 
ditious performance had left any doubt as to her total 
inability to grasp the Shakespearean conception, her 
published statement would have sufficed to remove it. 
Hamlet, according to Mme. Bernhardt's deliverance, 
is "manly and resolute," and, being "manly and 
resolute," the character is one eminently fit to be 
assumed by a woman. Hamlet should not be over- 
whelmed upon meeting with his father's ghost, because 
he has come "expressly to see it": that is to say, an 
experience completely outside of anything known 
as possible, an experience so awful that it unsettles the 
brain, an experience so incredible that the recipient's 
mind involuntarily rejects it, almost as soon as it has 
passed ("That undiscovered country from whose bourn 
no tfaveller returns"), is to be encountered with 
equanimity and dominated by energetic resolution, 
merely because the Prince has said that he will 



440 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

accost the phantom if it assumes his father's per- 
son. Hamlet wildly declares that he will speak to 
the apparition, though hell itself should bid him to be 
silent: therefore, says Mme. Bernhardt, he is "not a 
weak or languid person." Hamlet hysterically threat- 
ens his restraining friends, in his first Ghost Scene, 
and insists on being permitted to follow the spectre: 
therefore he is "not a feeble man." Hanriet, in the 
scene of the King's prayer, refrains from killing that 
monarch, "not because he is vacillating and weak, but 
because he is firm and logical," desiring to kill his 
enemy "in a state of sin, not of repentance; to send 
him to hell, not to heaven." That is to say, Hamlet 
is "manly and resolute," "a young, strong, determined 
character," who "thinks before he acts," and who 
possesses "great strength and great power of mind," 
because, at certain moments, he shows an evanescent 
capability of vehement speech and of delirious action, 
and because, in his obvious condition of partial 
derangement, he puts aside an opportunity of right- 
eous vengeance, with the avowed purpose of presently 
committing the most horrible of imaginable crimes, — 
the infernal crime (infernal to a Catholic or any other 
Christian believer) of sending a soul into eternal hell. 
In other words, Hamlet is a sane, potent, expeditious 
individual, to whom a ghost is as incidental as an 
omelette, because he makes brave speeches and pur- 



HAMLET 441 

poses to act like a moral monster. Nothing could be 
further from the truth. "Shakespeare, by his colossal 
genius," said Mme. Bernhardt, "belongs to the uni- 
verse, and a French, a German, or a Russian brain 
has the right to admire and to understand him." 
Assuredly! But the right to understand does not 
always include the capacity. Mme. Bernhardt's ideal 
of Hamlet was radically and absolutely wrong, and 
her performance served only to illustrate her error. 

When that eminent French actress first tried to 
play Hamlet, in Paris, a prodigious mental illumina- 
tion befell the French capital. The performance lasted 
six hours. Many spectators were so delighted that 
they left the theatre before it was over, in order 
to read the play. The survivors of those who remained 
to the last went home to breakfast completely 
enthralled and practically exhausted. M. Rostand, — 
much interested in the Bard of Avon, from whose 
works he had "conveyed" the Balcony Scene, for 
"Cyrano de Bergerac," and the Mirror and Spectre 
Scenes, for "L'Aiglon," — declared that he was now 
"able, for the first time, to comprehend Shake- 
speare's masterpiece." That tremendous person Mr. 
Walter, proprietor of "The London Times," since 
deceased (a writer who had never manifested even 
the slightest capabilitj'' of dramatic criticism, but 
merely had inherited a position that enabled him to 



442 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

make himself conspicuously public), had a spasm, 
in the course of which he ejaculated the informa- 
tion that, "having seen all the great tragedians for 
thirty years he had only now seen Hamlet acted 
to perfection." Two Parisian citizens, — one of them 
a local bard, the other a silvergilt dandy, — ^went 
into the lobby of the theatre to dispute about Shake- 
speare, and presently smote each other upon their 
respective noses, even unto the spilling of gore. All 
"fasliionable Paris," — which, of course, had given its 
days and nights to the study of "Hamlet" and learned 
all about it, — made to the obliging newspaper press 
the novel announcement that Mme. Bernhardt's por- 
trayal of him was "a revelation." Well — it was! In 
particular it was noted that the French actress had 
kindly removed from Hamlet's character all predis- 
position to dream and drift, all lassitude of the will, 
and every trace of melancholy; and likewise that, — 
"with one auspicious and one dropping eye," beholding 
feminine prettiness at one angle and romantic youth at 
the other, — she had reduced his age from thirty to 
twenty-one. Altogether it was a great night for Gaul, 
and thereupon the victorious Mme. Bernhardt, much 
encouraged, invaded England with her popinjay 
Hamlet, and actually exhibited him in the Shake- 
speare Memorial Theatre at Stratford-upon-Avon. 



VI. 

MACBETH. 

"Lo! the mystic volumes rise 
Wherein are lapt from mortal eyes 
Horrid deeds as yet unthought. 
Bloody battles yet unfought. 
The sudden fall and deadly wound 
Of the tyrant yet uncrowned 
And his line of many dyes 
Who yet within the cradle lies.'* 

— Joanna Baillie. 

HISTORICAL COMMENT. 

In some of the editions of the works of Shake- 
speare the tragedy of "Macbeth" is included among 
those of his plays which are called "Histories," but 
as there is no authentic historical basis for it, any 
more than there is for "Cymbeline" or "King Lear," 
that classification is incorrect. The plot was inge- 
niously deduced from Raphael Holinshed's "Chroni- 
cle History of Scotland," 1577, and it is recorded 
that the old Scotch poet and historian George 
Buchanan (1506-1582), more than fifty years before 
Shakespeare wrote the play, "had remarked how well 

443 



444 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

the legend of Macbeth was fitted for the stage." 
There are passages in the writings of those old 
chroniclers Holinshed and Hall, — writings which 
Shakespeare's plays show that he had read, — such 
as no impressionable person can read without a sense 
of weirdness and a thrill of dread, and undoubtedly 
they fired the imagination of the poet. The legend 
of Macbeth, however, as related in the "Chronicle," 
while strongly suggestive of dramatic situations, could 
have been made practicable for the stage only by 
a complete rearrangement of details, radically regard- 
less of historic fact. That was the method pursued 
by Shakespeare. The early history of Scotland is 
an appalling record of promiscuous, savage slaughter. 
The "Chronicle" teems with narratives of frightful 
barbarity and hideous crime. The chief incidents 
that the dramatist selected from it for use in his play 
are the meeting of Macbeth and Banquo with witches, 
Macbeth's accession to the throne, the murder of 
Banquo and escape of Fleance, and the defeat and 
death of Macbeth. In the play King Duncan's army, 
commanded by Macbeth and Banquo, has vanquished, 
in quick succession, two forces of insurgents, the first 
led by a rebel chieftain, Macdonwald, the second led 
by another rebel, the Thane of Cawdor, leagued with 
Sweno, King of Norway. In fact, a part of northern 
Scotland was, in King Duncan's time (1034-1039), 



MACBETH 445 

overrun by the Norwegians, with whom and with 
the Danes he was continually at war, and it was after 
a battle in which he had been defeated by Danish 
invaders that Macbeth, — by birth Thane of Ross and 
by marriage Thane of Moray, and until then a loyal 
chieftain, — conspired with Banquo against their sover- 
eign ; confederated with his foes ; attacked and defeated 
him in battle; and, coming upon him in the shop 
of a blacksmith near Elgin, inflicted on liim a mortal 
wound. The place was called "Bothgowanan," mean- 
ing "the smith's bothy." Duncan expired at Elgin and 
was buried at lona. The story of the murder of 
King Duncan, as told in Shakespeare's play, is an 
artistically embellished variant of the "Chronicle" 
narrative of the assassination of King Duf (961-965), 
by command of Donwald, one of his chieftains, 
incited to that treacherous and dastardly deed by 
Lady Donwald, his wife. King Duf met his cruel 
fate, in a castle near Forres, about sixty-five years 
before the murder of King Duncan and many years 
before Macbeth was born. Holinshed's account of 
the murder is circumstantial and peculiarly sug- 
gestive. 

"The King got him into his privy chamber, only with two 
of his chamberlains, who, having brought him to bed, came 
forth again, and then fell to banqueting with Donwald and 
his wife, who had prepared divers delicate dishes and sun- 



446 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

dry sorts of drinks for their rear supper or collation, 
whereat they sat up so long, till they had charged their 
stomachs with such full gorges, that their heads were no 
sooner got to the pillow but asleep they were so fast that 
a man might have removed the chamber over them sooner 
than to have awaked them out of their drunken sleep. 

"Then Donwald, though he abhorred the act greatly in 
heart, yet, through instigation of his wife, he called four of 
his servants unto him (whom he had made privy to his wicked 
intent before, and framed to his purpose with large gifts), 
and now, declaring unto them after what sort they should 
work the feat, they gladly obeyed his instructions, and, 
speedily going about the murder, they entered the chamber 
(in which the King lay) a little before cock's-crow, where 
they secretly cut his throat, as he lay sleeping, without any 
bustling at all; and immediately, by a postern gate, they 
carried forth the dead body into the fields. . . . Donwald, 
about the time that the murder was in doing, got him amongst 
them that kept the watch, and so continued in company with 
them all the residue of the night. But in the morning, when 
the noise was raised in the King's chamber how the King 
was slain, his body conveyed away, and the bed all beraid 
with blood, he, with the watch, ran thither, as though he 
had known nothing of the matter, and, breaking into the 
chamber, and finding cakes of blood in the bed and on the 
floor about the sides of it, he forthwith slew the chamberlains 
as guilty of that heinous murder. . . . For the space of 
six months together, after this heinous murder thus commit- 
ted, there appeared no sun by day, nor moon by night, in 
any part of the realm ; but still was the sky covered with 
continual clouds, and sometimes such outrageous winds arose, 
with lightnings, and tempests, that the people were in great 
fear of present destruction." 



MACBETH 447 

King Duf had incurred the enmity of Donwald 
and his wife by slaying several of their relatives. He 
was the great-grandfather of Lady Macbeth, who had 
been Lady GiTioch, wife of Gilcomgain, Thane of 
Moray, and who was a widow when she became Mac- 
beth's wife. That lady's experience of sanguinary 
proceedings appears to have been intimate. Her 
first husband, Gilcomgain; her grandfather. King 
Kenneth the Fourth; and her only brother were killed 
by Malcolm — grandfather of King Duncan — who 
afterward reigned as King Malcolm the Second (1003- 
1033) . She had a son, by Gilcomgain, named 
Lulach. After the death of Duncan Macbeth 
ascended the Scottish throne, reigning from 1039 
till 1056, and exhibiting as a sovereign both vigorous 
authority and fervid piety: in 1050 he made a pil- 
grimage to Rome. In 1054 his realm was invaded 
by Siward, Earl of Northumberland, who encountered 
him in battle and defeated him, with great slaughter 
of his forces. Macbeth escaped and he succeeded 
in partially retrieving his position and retaining 
the crown, but two years later he was defeated 
in another desperate battle, by Malcom Ceanmore 
("Malcolm of the great head"), eldest son of King 
Duncan, and while flying from the field was overtaken 
and slain, at Lumphanan, in Aberdeenshire, where 
a cairn is still existent which is, conjecturally, said 



448 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

to mark his grave. His corpse, it is probable, was 
conveyed to lona and there buried in the sepulchi'e 
of the Scottish kings. His adherents placed his step- 
son, Lulach, on the throne, but the resolute Malcolm, 
steadily continuing the war, overpowered and killed 
that prince, — whose reign had lasted only four months 
and a half, — at Essie, in Strahbogie, on April 3, 
1057, and immediately assumed the crown, as King 
Malcolm the Third (1057-1093). 

A wild and dreary plain, called the Harmuir, sit- 
uated on the borders of Elgin and Nairn, is, tradi- 
tionally, declared to be the place where Macbeth and 
Banquo, returning victorious from the field of battle, 
met the Witches, who are, in Shakespeare's play, so 
significantly denominated the Weird Sisters. That 
moorland is, — or was, when I saw it, — a desolate 
expanse, seeming to be partly fens and partly swamps, 
variegated with white stones and bushes of furze. At 
all times bleak and lonesome, it was unspeakably 
gloomy when swept by storm, or when the streamers 
of fog, so frequent in Scotland, trailed over it, or 
when night was coming down. Such places power- 
fully affect the imagination and it is not wonderful 
that the inhabitants of Scotland, particularly in the 
Highlands, should have been, or should be, peculiarly 
amenable to romantic fancies and superstitious beliefs. 
Fancies, however, should not be permitted to authen- 



MACBETH 449 

ticate misrepresentations of fact. The traveller in 
Scotland can, if he pleases, imbibe much traditionary 
lore which is also visionary. At opulent and pic- 
turesque Inverness he will hear that Macbeth's 
Castle "stood on an eminence to the southwest" 
of the stately town, and, if he has my experience, 
he will be told of the actual room in which King 
Duncan was murdered, in a modern castle which 
stands there now. In the neighborhood of Glamis 
Castle, situated about four miles from Forfar, within 
view of Birnam Hill, and in that of Cawdor Castle, 
about six miles from Nairn, he is likely to learn that 
both those edifices were once inhabited by Macbeth, 
that deeds of darkness were done in them and that 
haunted chambers are not the least of their charms. 
Not long ago it was announced that a popular 
American actor intended to act Macbeth in both 
Glamis and Cawdor castles, because of their direct 
personal association with him, and it has been men- 
tioned, as a denotement of fidelity to the actual time 
and surroundings of the ancient Scottish monarch, 
that in the production of Shakespeare's tragedy 
recently effected in London by Herbert Beerbohm- 
Tree the interior walls of Macbeth's castle were hung 
with tapestry, as they are at Glamis. The fact is 
that castles in Scotland, in the tenth century, were 
made of timber and sod, that they have disappeared. 



450 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

and that probably not a vestige remains of any build- 
ing that Macbeth ever entered or ever saw. 

The tragedy of "Macbeth" is a poetic fabric, a 
work of the imagination, and it should be read 
and treated as such. The student of Shakespeare, 
whether reader or actor, ought to be acquainted with 
whatever historical basis exists for any of Shake- 
speare's plays, because such knowledge, interesting 
in itself, is an aid to comprehension of the poet's art 
and of the workings' of his wonderful mind; but the 
student is not aided by encumbrance of those plays 
with fictitious trappings or by the reading into them 
of references and significations unwarranted by their 
text. Shakespeare is, of all poetical writers, the 
simplest. His plays, primarily, were wi'itten for 
representation on the stage. No one of them, it is per- 
fectly obvious, was designed to illustrate any specific 
philosophical proposition or to expound and enforce 
any specific moral. But their author, great as he was 
as a dramatist, was greater as a poet; and the great 
poet saw human life not as a fragment, but as a 
whole; not as circumscribed to an individual, but as 
comprehensive of the human race; not as a transcript 
of the past, a reflection of the present, or a forecast 
of the future, but as a combination and spectacle of all 
of these, and so it happens that his plays not only 
satisfy the needs of the stage but often far transcend 



MACBETH 451 

its requirements, providing such "a wide and uni- 
versal" depiction of human nature and experience — 
the infinite longings of the mind and the strange, 
wayward impulses of the heart — as no expedients of 
stage art, employed by the genius and skill of its most 
efficient representatives, have done more than to 
suggest. Clarity of poetic vision necessarily induces 
unity of design. Each of the great tragedies of 
Shakespeare is pervaded by a dominant quality. In 
"Othello," the supreme exposition of the terrible 
passion of jealousy, that quality is Action. In "Ham- 
let," the perfect portrayal of the spiritualized intellect, 
dazed and baffled by the unfathomable mystery of 
life and death, it is Thought. In "King Lear," the 
most stupendous creation with which genius has 
enriched the literature of the world, — the representa- 
tive drama of the human heart, — it is Misery. In 
"Macbeth," the final epitome of preternatural forces, 
terrific crimes, and haunting horror, it is Imagination. 
The play of "Macbeth" has been on the stage for 
more than three hundred years. Trustworthy 
authority names 1606 as the date of its composition. 
In 1610 that subtle knave Dr. Simon Forman, the 
nefarious astrologer, saw a performance of it at the 
London Globe and recorded the fact in his diary; 
but that record is only a meagre synopsis of the story 
and it provides no account of the acting. One remark 



452 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

in it, however, to the effect that Macbeth and Banquo, 
when they met the Witches, were riding through a 
wood, possesses a certain significance, seeming to 
indicate that those chieftains made their first appear- 
ance on the stage on horseback. The first publication 
of the tragedy occurred in the Folio of 1623. It 
had remained in manuscript, in the possession of the 
managers who owned it, for about seventeen years, and 
the text, there is reason to believe, was freely altered 
and seriously marred in the interval. This fact — 
that the play survives in a mangled form — must 
necessarily be considered by every student, actor or 
reader, who endeavors to comprehend the scheme of 
it and to form a correct ideal of the poet's con- 
ception of the character of Macbeth. The Witch ele- 
ment, expressive of the occult power that impels 
Macbeth, is of primary importance, and the evidence 
is conclusive that the Witch Scenes of Shakespeare 
were changed and expanded by another hand. 



THE PLAY AND THE CHARACTER. 

Tragedians of authority have designated Macbeth 
as, among all Shakespeare's characters, the most diffi- 
cult of adequate representation. Indeed, a great 
embodiment of that part has seldom been seen. 
No performance of it is impressive that does not 



MACBETH 453 

inspire sympathy, and an actor must possess pecu- 
liar and exceptional magnetism in order to inspire 
sympathy with a man who receives into his home a 
friend and benefactor, steals to his bedside in the depth 
of night and murders him in his sleep. Macbeth 
should be embodied and displayed as a person who is 
intrinsically noble, but in whose nature, nevertheless, 
there are seeds of evil, and who is compelled into 
crime by preternatural, infernal agency which he is 
absolutely powerless to resist. Thus embodied, he is 
shown as a massive type of agonizing, colossal conflict 
between good and evil. He arouses the imagina- 
tion; through the imagination he thrills the mind and, 
at some points, touches the heart. No situation has 
been devised in English tragedy which is at once as 
awful, terrible, and pathetic as that in which Macbeth 
and his Queen are placed at the close of the Banquet 
Scene in this play, when they are left alone at the 
summit of their ambition, their guilty triumph, and 
their immedicable misery. 

EARLY PRODUCTIONS.— THOMAS BETTERTON. 

As Richard Burbage was the first representative of 
King Richard the Third it has been assumed that he 
was also the first representative of 3Iacbeth, but the 
manner of his acting that part, if he did act it, is 



454 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

unknown, nor is informing testimony extant as to 
the appearance of any of his contemporaries in it, or 
as to his and their successors in it down to the time of 
Queen Anne. Betterton, in the course of his third 
season at Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre, acted Mac- 
beth^ November 5, 1664, on which occasion the tragedy 
was produced according to the original text (Genest) 
as given in the First Folio; but later, in 1672, at Dor- 
set Garden, he presented it as a melodrama, using a 
version made by Sir William Davenant. Many Sing- 
ing Witches were employed in that representation, — 
pretty women, arrayed in fantastic, comic attire, such 
as Burns indicates in his devils' dance in "Tam o' Shan- 
ter," with music, undeniably effective, composed by 
Matthew Locke, wliich is still in use and well known. 
That music has been attributed to Henry Purcell, but 
Purcell was only fourteen years old in 1672. It has 
also been attributed to Richard Leveridge, who was 
only two years old at that time. One authority states 
that the music in question was written by Purcell for a 
production of "Macbeth" in 1689, and long afterward 
was erroneously ascribed to Locke by the musical 
composer Dr. William Boyce. It is certain, however, 
that music was used by Davenant in the presentment 
(1672) of the .tragedy at Dorset Garden. 

It has been customary to state that Betterton gave 
a grand performance of Macbeth. CoUey Gibber, 



MACBETH 455 

writing in 1739, twenty-nine years after Betterton's 
death, declared, "All the Hamlets, Hotspurs, Mac- 
beths, and Brutuses whom you have seen since his 
time have been far short of him." Gibber was a good 
observer; his statement may be true; the nature of 
Betterton's great superiority in Macbeth, however, 
is not indicated. There is no account of the business 
which he used, nor is there specification of the gar- 
ments that he wore when acting the Scottish warrior. 
The custom seems to have been to wear a military uni- 
form of the actor's period, and probably Betterton 
conformed to that custom. 



DAVID GARRICK AND HANNAH PRITCHARD. 

Davenant's mutilation of Shakespeare's play, which 
had already been mutilated, probably by Thomas Mid- 
dleton, continued to be used until the time of David 
Garrick. In 1744 that expeditious innovator pro- 
duced " 'Macbeth,' as written by Shakespeare," adver- 
tising it in those words, and if contemporary testi- 
mony can be trusted he gave a performance of the 
fiend-driven, haunted, agonized, desperate, almost 
maniacal murderer which was marvellously imaginative 
and effective. A particularly instructive comment on 
Garrick's performance, made by one who saw it, tes- 
tifies that "Every sentiment rose in his mind and 



456 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

showed itself in his countenance before he uttered a 
word." Mrs. Pritchard played Lady Macbeth and 
overwhelmed beholders by the horrible force of im- 
placable cruelty, the grandeur of imperial manner, 
and the poignant pathos of ultimate, withering 
desolation; yet it is alleged on credible authority that 
she had never read the play, her only knowledge of the 
subject having been derived from "the part," as 
delivered to her by the prompter, and from rehearsals 
and performances in which she participated. Dr. 
Johnson unjustly called her "a vulgar idiot." She 
was a woman of fine character and exemplary life, and 
there is abundant testimony to her rare professional 
talents. The business ever since used by Lady 
Macbeth in the Banquet Scene was invented by her. 
The colloquy immediately after the murder was spoken 
by Garrick and Mrs. Pritchard in deep, hollow, fear- 
ful whispers, a method which also has been used ever 
since. Garrick, holding the gory daggers, seemed 
absolutely frantic; "his face grew whiter and whiter" 
as he spoke, — a phenomenon of nervous sensibility 
possibly observable in a time when "make-up" was 
often neglected, — and the expression of horror when 
he saw and held up his bloody hands was tremendous. 
His delivery of the speech beginning "Canst thou not 
minister to a mind diseased?" was accounted excep- 
tionally beautiful. 



MACBETH 457 

In presenting " 'Macbeth,' as written by Shake- 
speare," Garrick did not closely adhere to the original, 
because he not only allowed the use of abundant musi- 
cal embellishment but added a long "dying speech," 
of his own composition, for Macbeth to deliver after 
the combat, so that he could keep the stage till the 
last; but his treatment of Shakespeare's play was 
more respectful than that of Davenant, who, among 
many other liberties, added, in Act IV., an insipid 
colloquy between Macbeth and his Queen, in the 
course of which the Ghost of Banquo appeared and 
was seen by both of them, to the special consternation 
of the lady. That Garrick knew and higlily valued 
the expressive art of his acting of Macbeth is spe- 
cifically denoted by the circumstance that when he 
was in Italy, in 1763, having been asked by a local 
prince to show his skill in the art of expression, he 
immediately assumed the position and demeanor of 
Macbeth when seeing the dagger in the air, and 
repeated the accompanying speech, with, it is related, 
astounding and convincing effect. His dress for Mac- 
beth was the uniform of a British army officer of his 
day, a scarlet or a sky-blue coat ornamented with gold 
lace, snug white breeches, top-boots, and a powdered 
wig. He seldom gave attention to propriety of cos- 
tume. When acting Hotspur, for example, he wore 
a ramillies and a laced frock-coat. All the male 



458 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

actors of the Garrick period (except, in a few in- 
stances, Macklin) were equally heedless, and every 
character, irrespective of era or nationality, was 
dressed with a huge periwig, large sums of money 
being expended for the decoration. Once in a while 
a monarch, — Richard the Third or Henry the Eighth, 
— would be more or less properly attired, but he 
would be singular in his suitability. English kings 
customarily glittered in scarlet and gold; French 
kings gleamed in white and silver. The ruffians who 
are employed by 3Iacheth to murder Banquo were 
invariably provided ^\ith swarthy complexions and 
plenty of dark hair. "What is the meaning," asked 
King Charles the Second, when present at a per- 
formance of "Macbeth," "that we never see a rogue 
in a play but, oddsfish! they always clap him on a 
black periwig, when it is well known one of the 
greatest rogues in England [meaning the Earl of 
Shaftesbury] wears a fair one?" In Garrick's produc- 
tion of "Macbeth" the Witches wore plaited caps, 
laced aprons, red stomachers, ruffs, and mittens. 



GARRICK'S CONTEMPORARIES. 

Among the actors contemporary with Garrick no 
one seems to have made an impression of supreme 
merit in Macbeth. The part was played by James 



MACBETH 459 

Quin, Spranger Barry, Henry Mossop, Barton Booth, 
Robert Wilks, John Henderson, and Charles Maeklin. 
Quin possessed a formidable person, consonant with 
the ideal of "Bellona's bridegroom," but in poetic 
parts he was an inflexible and monotonous actor, the 
exponent of "dignity and declamation," and he did 
not act it in a manner to touch the imagination. 
Horace Walpole wrote that his Macbeth was better 
than Garrick's — an opinion of dubious value. Barry, 
the Romeo of his time, showed himself to be tem- 
peramentally unsuited to it, being of a soft, silvery, 
insinuating order of character. Mossop, the originator 
of the "tea-pot" attitude (the right arm a spout, the 
left a handle), although he evinced comprehension of 
it and was correct in purpose, lacked variety of 
action. Barton Booth, a person of medium height, 
having a round, ruddy face and tense muscles, was 
deemed better fitted for such parts as Othello and 
Jaffier — "emotional parts," as they are now called — 
than for imaginative, weird, ghastly characters, like 
Macbeth. Wilks, essentially a comedian, failed in it. 
Mills, a ponderous, conscientious performer, was 
heavy in it, though he spoke some of the lines with 
discretion, feeling, and good effect. Henderson seems 
to have given a performance much more than respect- 
able, and as he is known to have been a diligent 
reader of every nan*ative of horror that he could 



460 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

obtain he probably felt and expressed an acute sym- 
pathy with the spirit of the poet's weird conception. 
Macklin's assumption of Macbeth was remarkable 
because of his investiture of it with a more appro- 
priate dress than had ever before been worn. That 
original actor played it for the first in 1772, when he 
was eighty-two years old, and the audience, which had 
been accustomed to see Macbeth arrayed in scarlet and 
gold and surmounted by a bag wig, then first saw him 
suitably attired. The garments and appurtenances 
used by Macklin were Scotch, and the example thus 
set has ever since been followed; and of course the 
instruction has been bettered. Macklin's acting of 
Macbeth, while fine at some points, appears to have 
been more informing than impressive. In the Dag- 
ger Scene and the Banquet Scene he was inefficient, 
but in the colloquy with the ruffians employed to as- 
sassinate Banquo he was exceedingly effective, and he 
delivered the speech beginning "If thou speak'st false" 
in a manner that "almost petrified the audience." 



JOHN PHILIP KEMBLE. 

John Philip Kemble acted Macbeth, apparently for 
the first time, in 1782, at York, and thereafter retained 
the part in his repertory; and though his crowning 
achievements were Penruddock and Coriolanus (he 



MACBETH 461 

played 172 parts of record) he was thought to have 
greatly excelled in it. In 1788, when manager of 
Druiy Lane, he brought out "Macbeth" in what was 
deemed sumptuous style, and his presentment of it 
both then and later, in 1794, exhibited some commend- 
able innovations. Davenant's version was used, and 
the Witch Scenes were freely embellished. Creatures 
supposed to be incarnations of the four elements 
participated with the Witches in the incantations, and 
the beautiful Mrs. Anna Crouch led the diabolical 
revels, arrayed in fine linen, point-lace, and a conical 
hat, her face rouged and her hair powdered. Kemble 
habitually gave close attention to detail. The sound 
of a clock striking two, instead of the sound as of 
a single stroke, or a tinkle, on a bell made by Lady 
Macbeth, was heard at a point during Macheth's 
delivery of the dagger speech ("The bell invites 
me"), agreeably to an intimation of the time of the 
murder of Duncan ("One, two"), in the Sleep- 
walking Scene. The replies to the questions of 
Macduff and JLenox, just before the discovery of the 
murder of Duncan, were finely uttered, with an air 
of intense preoccupation. Kemble was the first actor 
to dispense (1794) with the actual apparition of 
Banquo. From Shakespeare's time the custom had 
been for Banquo to walk on, his head gory and his 
throat gashed and bleeding, seat himself at the table, 



462 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

gaze at Macbeth, and indicate by a gesture his blood- 
stained neck. Kemble, at "Here is a place reserved, 
sir," saw the spectre in the empty chair, and his action 
is represented as having been thrilling in its effect. 
"You look but on a stool" says the Queen. The 
omission of the actual, visible representative of the 
spectre had been advised by critics of the period, 
notably, in verse, by that miniature Churchill, Robert 
Lloyd. The precedent thus provided was followed by 
Macready, by Edwin Booth, and, though not at 
first, by Irving. Edwin Forrest, on the other hand, 
adhered to the ancient practice in this respect, as 
also did Edmund Kean, Robert William Elliston, 
George Frederick Cooke, Lewis Hallam, John Hodg- 
kinson, Charles Mayne Young, Thomas Abthorpe 
Cooper, Edward L. Davenport, Gustavus Vaughan 
Brooke, Barry Sullivan, and George Vandenhoif. The 
view that Kemble took of Macbeth was the view after- 
ward stated by his biographer, James Boaden: 
"Macbeth is a fatalist and conceives that certain 
beings may be the organs of destiny. Fate will always 
bring its decrees to their completion. It is useless 
to question what has been pronounced by the spirits, 
to whom *all mortal consequences' are known." If 
an actual Ghost is to be introduced, an eifect both 
dramatic and appalling could be caused by showing 
the Ghost of King Duncan as the second apparition 



MACBETH 463 

in the Banquet Scene. That expedient has not, as 
far as I can ascertain, ever been used, though it has 
been contended that Macbeth sees and apostropliizes 
the Ghost of the murdered King when he says "Take 
any shape but that!" The better way, no doubt, 
always provided that the actor is able to create the 
requisite illusion and maintain in that terribly exacting 
situation his hold upon his audience, is to leave the 
spectres to the imagination. 

Kemble's costume for Macbeth was composed mostly 
of a short woollen coat, a belted plaid over ring-mail, 
and a cap with tall, heavy, nodding plumes in it. One 
night when he was to act the part he was visited 
in his dressing-room at the theatre by Sir Walter 
Scott, who took the plumes out of the cap and inserted 
an eagle's feather, which he had brought, in place 
of them, — a fitting ornament, which afterward Kemble 
always wore when playing Macbeth. Charles Kemble, 
John's brother, who also played Macbeth, gave a 
respectable performance. The best praise of it which 
I have found refers to the excellent effect of his 
look and attitude while listening at the door of King 
Duncan's chamber before entering to do the murder. 
One recorder, the caustic "Joe" Cowell, a shrewd 
observer, considered Charles a better actor than John, 
and it is not impossible that Charles's merit was 
overshadowed by John's earlier acquired reputation. 



464 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

SUPERNATURAL ATMOSPHERE.— EDMUND KEAN. 

In a representation of "Macbeth" the obtainment 
of decisively right poetic and tragic effect depends 
almost exclusively on an artistic maintenance, through- 
out the representation, of an atmosphere of preter- 
natural agency. WlacbetJis phrase for it is singularly 
suggestive — "This supernatural soliciting." The 
Witches embody the malignant power of hell. In 
Shakespeare's day, and for a long time after his day, 
the belief was wadely prevalent that demons, embodied 
spirits of wickedness, intent to accomplish evil, are 
permitted to infest the earth. The poet possibly par- 
ticipated in that belief; several of his eminent intel- 
lectual contemporaries did. The Witches of Shake- 
speare, as acutely remarked by Lamb, "originate deeds 
of blood and begin bad impulses to men." Davenant's 
treatment of them in his scheme of melodrama, 
although it served to popularize the play, perverted 
them from their author's design, degrading them from 
the attitude of potent, compulsory demons to the 
position of mere theatrical expedients. The practical 
restoration of them as "the weird women" to the place 
that Shakespeare obviously intended they should 
occupy and to the function they should exercise 
in his tragedy is due to the example of Edmund 
Kean, who, in 1814, at Drury Lane, acted Macbeth, 



MACBETH 465 

and, according to the best testimony obtainable, 
gave a magnificent performance of it, presenting 
the play in its original form. "I'll have the Witches 
played properly," he said. "The rubbish shall be 
cleared away; I'll have none of it." He also in some 
particulars improved the style of dressing the play — 
a style inherited from Kemble, who had followed the 
lead of Macklin; but the literal apparition of Banquo 
was retained. In the exposition of Macheth's mental 
conflict before the murder of Duncan, the delivery of 
the dagger speech, and the frenzied agony of con- 
scious guilt, abject terror, and shuddering remorse, 
expressed in word and action, after the assassination, 
he was astounding. "The manner in which his voice 
clung to his throat and choked his utterance," said 
Hazlitt, describing Kean's acting in that Murder 
Scene, "the force of nature overcome by passion, beg- 
gared description." His searching glance at Banquo 
and the assumed carelessness of tone with which he 
said "Your children shall be kings" were noted as 
delicately artistic points in his performance. In the 
combat, at the close, he caused a startling effect when 
pausing to vaunt his invulnerability to any mortal 
hand — "I bear a charmed life" — and by the terrific 
and deadly glare with which, after standing for a 
moment as though petrified on hearing Macduff's 
answer, "Despair thy charm," he rallied to meet the 



466 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 



1 



final catastrophe. In falling he pitched forward at 
full length, and dropped face downward. 

In memoirs of Edmund Kean it is alleged that when 
a child of seven he was employed at Drury Lane and 
assigned to represent one of many goblins in a new 
Caldron Scene which John Philip Kemble had devised 
for the embellishment of a revival of "Macbeth." The 
date is variously given, but as the performance is 
mentioned as the one in which a lake of actual water 
was used it must have been April 21, 1794. Mrs. 
Siddons played Lady Macbeth. Charles Kemble, 
making his first appearance at Drury Lane, played 
Malcolm. That was the occasion on which the Ghost 
of Banquo was for the first time treated as a phantom 
visible only to Macbeth. Little Kean, then bearing 
the name of Carey, was wearing irons on his legs, to 
rectify their shape, which had been injured by the 
pantomimic contortions he had been trained to make. 
The goblins were placed in a row at the mouth of a 
cave, with Kean at their head, the direction being that, 
as Macbeth entered, they should encircle the caldron. 
When Macbeth came on Kean made an awkward 
step and, being unable to right himself because of 
his irons, reeled against another goblin; that one 
fell against a third, and so on, the whole line of 
imps being toppled over and sprawled in confusion, 
to the disgust of Kemble and the merriment of the 



MACBETH 467 

audience. "I tripped the goblins up," Kean is reported 
to have said, relating the incident in after years, 
"and they fell like a pack of cards." It is stated 
also that when censured for the mishap, which was 
surmised to have been a mischievous prank on the 
part of the boy, he proffered to the angry manager 
the demure excuse that it was "the first time I have 
performed in tragedy." 

It was said of Edmund Kean's Macbeth that it was 
like his Richard the Third — that he did not com- 
pletely discriminate between the two characters. The 
same comment might have been made relative to the 
acting, in those parts, of any actor, the most judicious 
that ever appeared. Macbeth and Richard possess 
certain conspicuous attributes in common, and 
although, as a whole, each character is sharply dis- 
tinct from the other, there are points of similarity 
between the two, which acting serves only to emphasize 
and enforce. Both are inspired and swayed by ambi- 
tion; both seek a royal crown; both commit murder 
to obtain it; both succeed temporarily by dissimula- 
tion and by deeds of blood; both are haunted by men- 
acing phantoms from the spiritual world; both become 
frenzied and desperate; and both perish on the battle- 
field, each slain by his particular foe. The radical 
difference between the two, nevertheless, is veiy great. 
In the character of Macbeth, notwithstanding his valor. 



468 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

intrepidity, and fortitude, there is a certain weakness — 
the weakness incident to infirmity of will, remorseful 
consciousness of guilt, and dread of ultimate disaster. 
In the character of Richard there is consistent and 
terrible strength, — which only once is shaken by 
terror of inexorable Fate. Mncbeth is an instrument 
in the hands of a demon: "The angel whom thou still 
hast served." Richard is incarnate, infernal power, 
sufficient unto itself. Macbeth is compact of tremulous 
imagination; Richard of fiery, malign intellect. Mac- 
beth loves and suffers. To Richard love is impossible 
and suffering is a transient spasm. Macbeth depends 
on his wife for aid and comfort, and the condition 
of that dependence is so pathetic that it excites sym- 
pathy. Richard depends entirely on himself, causes 
the murder of his Queen, the innocent, trusting, 
unfortunate Lady Anne; ordains and accomplishes 
the slaughter of his close associates Hastings and 
Buckingham; and in his frenzy, desperation, and 
violent death is consistently terrific, exciting mingled 
abhorrence and admiration. 

In every performance of Macbeth that has been 
given by an actor of fine ability the intention has been 
manifest to denote the haunted condition of his mind — 
the susceptibility of it to "supernatural solicitings" — by 
a specially illuminative treatment of the soliloquies, 
and, in particular, of the soliloquy relative to "the air- 



MACBETH 469 

drawn dagger." Macready, esteemed in his day the 
greatest Macbeth that had ever appeared, gave excep- 
tional attention to the Dagger Scene, gazing fixedly 
for a moment into space, and presently throwing him- 
self, in a delirium of horror, upon the illusion. In all 
those passages of the play which involve the element 
of the preternatural Macready particularly excelled. 
Such is the almost unanimous testimony ; yet even that 
scrupulously scholarlike and highly imaginative actor 
could, and did, mar the appearance of Macbeth, in 
the scene immediately sequent to the murder of King 
Duncan, by assuming a flowered chintz dressing-gown ! 
Davenport and the younger James W. Wallack, who 
had seen and studied Macready's performance of 
Macbeth and had become imbued with the influence of 
his style, copied him in the Dagger Scene and at some 
other points, as in dropping the truncheon from the 
extended right hand, at "The queen, my lord, is 
dead." Wallack, a superb actor when he chose to be, 
even copied Macready's grunts, gasps, and long, por- 
tentous pauses. As Macbeth Wallack's exit into the 
King's chamber, at "Hear it not, Duncan," was pro- 
longed to such an extent that his left leg remained in 
view of the audience for a considerable time after the 
rest of his person had disappeared. Davenport was 
a noble and impressive figure as Macbeth and his 
acting evinced a greatly excited imagination, an 



470 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

acutely sympathetic sense of the mystery and terror 
of preternatural agencies of evil controlling the actions 
and determining the destiny of a human being, abso- 
lute authority, and complete competence in the artistic 
expression of a distinct and right ideal. His elocution 
in this part was exceptionally fine. He used, in the 
Banquet Scene, the effective stage business which had 
been invented by Macready, — not striving to repel 
the horrible spectre, but shrinking from it, hiding his 
face, and then, on fearfully recovering and observing 
that the phantom had vanished, evincing delirious 
exultation: "Why, so, being gone I am a man again!" 
He elicited the great pathos that is in the part, and he 
laid much stress on the frightful energy of despera- 
tion by which, toward the last of his wretched life, the 
will of Macbeth is reanimated. There was not in his 
performance any attempt at eccentricity of embellish- 
ment: it was simple, and it exactly exemplified the 
good designation of the character conveyed in a few 
words by that deep thinker and extraordinary writer 
Bulwer-Lytton: 

"Macbeth was the kind of character which is most liable 
to be influenced by a belief in supernatural agencies, a man 
who is acutely sensitive to all impressions, who has a restless 
imagination more powerful than his will, . . . who has 
moral weakness and physical courage, and who alternates per- 



MACBETH 471 

petually between terror and daring, — a trembler when op- 
posed by his conscience and a warrior when defied by his 
foe." 

The simplicity so commendable in Davenport's 
treatment of "Macbeth" afforded a grateful relief 
from the custom, long prevalent, of overloading that 
marvellous play with artificial trappings inconsistent 
with its spirit and detrimental to its rightful dramatic 
effect. No one of Shakespeare's plays has been sub- 
jected to so much of misdirected experiment. The 
stage history of the play mentions many devices that 
one or another experimentalist has applied in the 
strenuous endeavor to exhibit novelty in the illustra- 
tion of it, particularly where there is employment of 
phantoms. In Davenant's version, while Banquo was 
personated by one actor (Smith), whose countenance 
was engaging, the Ghost of Banquo was personated by 
another actor (Sandford), whose face was ugly. On 
one occasion Kemble, as already noted, introduced 
gnomes and a lake, on the principle of the "real tubs" 
of Mr. Crummies. Fluctuation between the text of 
Shakespeare and that of Davenant has been frequent. 
Samuel Phelps, one of the greatest of English actors, 
when he assumed management of Sadler's Wells 
Theatre, — where so much was accomplished for the 
art of acting and the benefit of the public, — began. 



472 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

May 27, 1844, with a production of "Macbeth," but 
although a staunch contender for the original text of 
the poet he presented a variant of Davenant's version. 
Afterward, on September 27, 1847, he effected another 
revival of the tragedy, on that occasion reverting to 
Shakespeare and scrupulously following the stage 
directions given in the original, — directions which cast 
an instructive light on the coarse manner in which plays 
were presented in the poet's time. Macbeth was killed 
"off the scene" and his head was brought in on a pole, as 
ordered in the First Folio. The embodiment of 
3Iacheth by Phelps was declared, by some contem- 
porary writers, to surpass that given by Macready, 
then famous in the part and generally accepted as 
incomparable. The London "Athengeum" stated, of 
Phelps's Macbeth, that "since Edmund Kean we have 
seen notliing better for vigor and vivid effect.'* 
Earnest commendation was bestowed on liis impart- 
ment of imaginative influence and poetic feeling in the 
acting of Macbeth and on his restoration of the original 
text, but his bringing in of the gory head of the 
slaughtered tyrant was condemned as "a mistaken lit- 
erality." In Phelps's first presentment of "Macbeth" 
Lady Macbeth was acted by Mrs. Warner, whose per- 
formance was declared to be admirable in every par- 
ticular. The practice of juggling with Shakespearean 
spectres still continues. Hecate's numerous vocal 



MACBETH 473 

spirits still warble and Pepper's Ghost invention has 
been utilized. 

AMERICAN STAGE. 

Many representatives of Macbeth have appeared 
on the American Stage; few are extolled in authen- 
tic dramatic biography and few are remembered. 
Cooper's fame in it has not perished. John Ber- 
nard (1832), a sagacious judge of acting, deemed 
Cooper's performance of Macbeth "only inferior to 
Garrick's"; S. C. Carpenter (1810), a competent critic, 
declared it "preferable, in many parts, to those of 
Kemble and Cooke"; and Joseph T. Buckingham, a 
much respected authority, sixty years ago and more, 
characterized it as "terribly sublime" and "certainly 
Cooper's masterpiece." According to Buckingham 
"he played the Dagger Scene in a style altogether 
his own" and made it "one of the sublimest efforts 
of human genius. The terrible agonies of his mind, 
proclaiming their existence with 'most miraculous 
organ,' were too powerful to be long the object of 
attention. In the latter part of the play, after 
Macbeth has 'supped full with horrors,' the moral 
reflections were given with such exquisite beauty and 
feeling that we almost forget the crimes of the mur- 
derer and pity the wretched victim writhing with the 
tortures of his own conscience." 



474 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

EDWIN FORREST. 

Forrest's ideal of Macbeth was that of the robust 
warrior. At his first entrance he was simply a 
victorious military chieftain returning home from the 
wars, cheerful and with nothing in liis appearance 
indicative of sinister prepossession. The burly 
figure lacked distinction. The manner of speech 
was commonjDlace. Macbeth comments on the state 
of the weather, but he is already brooding over 
an ambitious, treacherous, evil thought. Forrest's 
misfortune in that character and in kindred characters 
was lack of imagination. His realm was that of fact 
and obvious, human feeling — the realm of Othello and 
Virginius. His embodiment of Macbeth was unwieldy, 
lumbering, prosaic; effective at some points by reason 
of violent action and sonorous vocalism, but com- 
pletely deficient of mystical atmosphere — the sense of 
being haunted and of being impelled by preternatural 
powers of evil. He did not particularly like the part, 
and he decidedly disliked to share with any other 
performer the chief honors of a representation. After 
his experience in London, where he played for 
a short season in 1845 with Charlotte Cushman, who, 
as Lady Macbeth, obscured his popularity, he sel- 
dom appeared in the tragedy and his appearance in it 
did not enhance his professional reputation. He 



MACBETH 475 

customarily dressed Macbeth in short breeches and a 
cloth tunic, belted at the waist and extending from 
neck to knees. Flat rings of metal sewed on the tunic 
gave that garment a resemblance to chain-mail. The 
sleeves reached to the wrists, which were provided 
with cuffs. Over-sleeves extended from the shoulders 
half-way to the elbows. At the neck the tunic was 
edged with white linen. Over the right thigh was sus- 
j)ended a long dirk; over the left thigh a sword. 
Across the left shoulder a cord was passed, sustaining 
a horn. The actor's large, hirsute legs were bare 
from knees to ankles, and his feet were furnished with 
thonged sandals. At his first and second entrances 
and also in the scenes of battle he carried on his 
left arm a metal-covered "target," having a long, 
massive spike in the centre of it. His head was 
covered by a wig of short, dark hair, and usually his 
face presented embellishments of a mustacher a "lip- 
tuft," and small side-whiskers. On the head was a 
large cloth cap somewhat resembling a tapi o' shanter, 
about which was twined a wide band ornamented with 
steel spangles, and in the front of which, fastened 
hy a clasp in the shape of a thistle, were two long 
feathers. 

In one of Forrest's productions of "Macbeth" (he 
did not invariably employ the same business) he 
employed a device which I believe was original 



476 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

with him, — certainly I never saw or heard of any 
one else who used it, — and it is worthy of record as 
being more imaginative than most of his technical 
expedients were. After Macbeth had entered the 
King's chamber to do the murder, the scene being 
a courtyard within the Castle of Inverness open to 
the sky, the three Witches appeared above the fret- 
ted battlements at the back, slowly and steathily 
rising, as if they were floating in the air and had 
come to preside and exult over the atrocious crime 
which they had stimulated their victim to commit. 
There are several ways in which that idea, with the 
aid of modern mechanical devices, could weirdly and 
well be employed, though perhaps it is questionable 
whether the expedient does not detract from the 
awful suspense of a supreme moment; whether prefer- 
ence should not be given to a vacant, dim scene and a 
momentary deathlike stillness before Lady Macbeth 
enters, saying "That which hath made them drunk 
hath made me bold"; but it is remembered as having 
caused a thrill. 

John McCullough and Lawrence Barrett, both of 
whom were ardent admirers of Forrest, followed his 
example to a slight extent in the dressing and acting 
of Macbeth, but each of them, possessing more gentle- 
ness of temperament and naturally more refinement 
of style, almost insensibly modified their respective 



MACBETH 477 

embodiments of the character, Barrett in particular, — 
who acted the part when associated with Charlotte 
Cushman, — conveying in a large measure the imagery 
and the desolate pathos of it. Neither McCullough 
nor Barrett, however, stood boldly out from the gen- 
eral rank of actors in that character. 



EDWIN BOOTH. 

In Edwin Booth's embodiment of Macbeth the pre- 
dominant qualities were imagination and poetic sensi- 
bility. In the early part of his professional life his 
ideal was wrong and his expression of it indefinite 
and crude, but both his ideal and his performance 
underwent much change, from year to year, and, at 
last, ceasing to be melodramatic and violent became 
clear and smooth, presenting a distinct study of fiend- 
inspired, compulsory criminality. Like Macready, 
whom he never saw. Booth, ultimately, insisted on 
inherent majesty and martial heroism as the basis 
of the character. He had seen his famous father 
in the part, and he derived his ideal from that 
instructive example as well as from devoted study 
of Shakespeare's text. He told me that, on an 
occasion when he was to act 3Iacbeth in association 
with Charlotte Cushman and was rehearsing with 
her she expressed interest in his treatment of the 



478 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

part, but good-naturedly dissented from it, saying 
''Macbeth is the great-grandfather of all the Bowery 
ruffians." That estimate of the character would be 
warranted if the fact were ignored that Macbeth 
(though, indeed, before meeting the Witches he 
appears to have thought of removing Duncan from 
his path to the throne, and to have communicated his 
thought to his wife) is irresistibly impelled and vio- 
lently precipitated into perpetration of crime by an 
overwhelming demoniacal power. Upon any other 
theory, meantime, Macbeth is a mere monster, a sort 
of mediaeval, romantically glossed, blank-verse Bill 
Sikes, and utterly abhorrent. It should be observed, 
as illuminative on this point, that Macbeth is never 
shown as exultant in crime, but always, before and 
after, as tortured on the borders of it, and ultimately 
as in a delirium of desperation. Edwin Booth took a 
high, poetic view of the character, and, as his genius 
was tragic, his appearance romantic, his action superb, 
and his elocution perfect, he gave a magnificent per- 
formance. His acute comprehension of Macbeth's 
nature and of the spirit of the tragedy was particularly 
exhibited in his thrilling utterance of those expressive 
speeches which abound with weird, imaginative figures 
and phrases, — night's yawning peal, the blanket of the 
dark, the dunnest smoke of hell, the rooky wood, the 
shard-borne beetle, the sentinel wolf, the silent horror. 




Courtesy of Evert Janseii Wendell 

EDWIN BOOTH AS MACBETH 

FROM A DRAWING BY \V. J. HENNESSEY 



MACBETH 479 

the walking shadow, the winds that fight against the 
churches, — figures and phrases that denote an atmos- 
phere of baleful omen and shuddering dread, envelop- 
ing and permeating the whole play and making it 
inexpressibly awful. The passages beginning "Had I 
but died an hour before this chance" and "She should 
have died hereafter" can never have been spoken with 
deeper feeling or more exquisite beauty of elocution, 
conveying their message of grief and despair straight 
to the heart, than were evinced in his delivery of them. 
When he said "Now o'er the one half world Nature 
seems dead" he appeared the authentic image of 
demoniac obsession. His tremulous absorption and 
electrical frenzy when gazing on the vacant chair 
in which Macbeth sees the Ghost of Banquo were so 
terrific that it made the phantom a reality to the 
spectator. His conflict with Macduff at the close was 
frightful in its maniacal vitality, expressive to the 
utmost possible extent of the recklessness of defiant 
valor and the fury of desperation. When he was 
beaten down and bereft of his sword he wildly fought 
on, stabbing the air with his hand, and on receiving 
the death-blow reared himself for a moment in agony, 
and then plunged forward, dead, at the feet of his 
antagonist. That also was the elder Booth's way of 
closing the performance of Macbeth — to die as a man 
predestined to perish, knowing his doom, but fiercely 



480 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

fighting to the last. The power of art, said Goethe, 
consists in conveying your impressions. Edwin Booth 
possessed that power in a superlative degree, and his 
embodiment of Macbeth, fulfilling every mental and 
spiritual condition of the part, was the most poetic 
that has been seen in our time. It did not, however, 
please everybody. Fon-est, who disliked Booth, — 
not perhaps unnaturally, as Booth surpassed him as an 
actor and succeeded him in leadership of the stage, — 
was emphatic in disapproval of it. At a theatre 
in Philadelphia that veteran attended a performance 
of the tragedy in which Booth and Charlotte Cush- 
man played the two great parts. With him was 
John McCullough, who told me of the incident. At 
Macbeth' s first entrance Forrest snorted with disgust. 
Booth, preoccupied and moody, was gazing toward 
the ground. "What's the damn' fool doing?" For- 
rest asked: "He looks like a super hunting for a 
sixpence." When Miss Cushman, in the Sleep-walk- 
ing Scene, referred to her "little hand," his patience 
became completely exhausted. "Little hand!" he 
exclaimed. "Why, it's as big as a codfish!" 

HENRY IRVING. 

All things considered, the most impressive pro- 
duction of "Macbeth" that has been effected was 



MACBETH 481 

made by Henry Irving in 1888. Scrupulous atten- 
tion was given by him to every detail of sceneiy 
and costume, and he acted Macbeth in such a way 
as to flutter the critical Volscians on both sides of 
the ocean. His theory, which he set forth in writ- 
ing, and caused to be published and widely cir- 
culated, was ingeniously devised to create controversy. 
^'Macbeth" (so wrote Irving) "was a poet with his 
brain and a villain with his heart. . . . Hypocrite, 
traitor, and regicide, he threw over his crimes the 
glamour of his own poetic, self-torturing thought": 
that is, the suffering of Macbeth was to be attributed 
not to pangs of conscience, but to pangs of imagina- 
tion, regardless that without conscience the imagina- 
tion can not and does not cause suffering through 
torture of the moral sense. The man was to be found 
exclusively in his deeds, not at all in the cause of them, 
and not at all in his words — which are the reflex of 
his mind and character when he speaks in soliloquy, 
and which plainly express the utter anguish of his 
condition ; 

"Better be with the dead 
Whom we, to gain our place, have sent to peace, 
Than on the torture of the mind to lie 
In restless ecstasy." 

In further support of his contention that Macbeth 
is an out-and-out villain Ii*ving wrote: "How any 



482 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

student, whether he be of the stage or not, can take 
those lines, 'Strange things I have in head, that will 
to hand; Which must be acted ere they may be 
scanned,' and, reading them in any light he may, 
can torture out a meaning of Macbeth' s native nobility 
or honor, I am truly at a loss to conceive." No 
student could wish to "torture out" or in any other 
way educe any meaning from the text of the tragedy 
that the text does not contain. The words, "Strange 
things I have in head," etc., are spoken by Macbeth 
late in his career of crime (they occur at the end of 
Act III., Sc. 4), and after he has specified, in a ter- 
ribly significant sentence, the desperate condition into 
which he has been driven and from which he cannot 
escape : 

"I am in blood 
Stepp'd in so far, that, should I wade no more, 
Returning were as tedious as go o'er." 

The native nobility of the man is, by implication, 
premised, and unless that premise be admitted the 
whole structure topples. In every human nature, 
however good, there is existent a capability of evil, 
but unless it be developed it does not militate against 
the goodness. Macbeth is not drawn as exempt 
from human weakness or as invulnerable to tempta- 
tion. He^ can be tempted and he will yield. The 



MACBETH 483 

powers of hell, — the evil "spirits that tend on mortal 
thought," — incarnate in the Witches, encounter him 
at precisely the moment when he is most likely to 
succumb, and they subdue him to their purpose. 
For what other possible reason did the poet introduce 
them into the fabric of his tragedy? It is sometimes 
fortunate that the performances of actors do not exem- 
plify their theories. Irving's theory did not virtually 
influence either the spirit or the effect of his perform- 
ance. There is an illuminative and true remark by 
Fanny Kemble which that performance precisely illus- 
trated: "From the first scene of the play to the last, the 
wounded soul of Macbeth writhes and cries and groans 
over its own deterioration; from the beginning to 
the end of his career the several stages of his progress 
in guilt are marked by his own bitter consciousness 
of it." That realm of consciousness, — the haunted 
mind, the agonized spirit, the tremulous human will 
nerving itself to oppose phantoms of terror and beat- 
ing against the adamantine force of eternal law, — is the 
particular realm in which Henry Irving preeminently 
reigned, and accordingly, in the weird scenes of "Mac- 
beth," the meeting with the Witches, the doing of 
the murder, the vision of "the blood-boltered Banquo," 
the awful desolation at the close of the Banquet Scene, 
and the visit to "the weird sisters," — "You secret, black, 
and midnight hags, what is't you do?" — he was entirely 



484 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

great. His struggle against collapse after the disap- 
pearance of the spectral Banquo and his appalled 
demeanor, affrighted turn and lingering look of 
horror upon the empty chair caused a chill shudder 
in those who saw him. Although a tall, wiry man, 
Irving did not possess the massive physique of the 
warrior who cleaves his adversary "from the nave to 
the chaps," and on the physical side his Macbeth 
was not robust; but he has not in our time, and 
probably not in any time, been surpassed in that 
part of the interpretation of Macbeth which par- 
ticularly exhibits the remorse of a mortal creature of 
good and evil environed by immortal spirits of wicked- 
ness, the shuddering, combative, tortured, afflicted ser- 
vant of an angel of hell. Irving, in his dressing, 
considered poetic effect rather than historic accuracy, 
which, indeed, would attire old Gaelic warriors in 
skins, cliiefly their own: he wore tawny red hair and 
a long, drooping mustache of the same color, and 
he made much use of picturesque, draped cloaks — 
garments which he wore with more grace than any 
other actor has shown whom I ever saw. In the 
Combat Scene with which it is customary to close 
the performance he wore complete armor that made 
the doomed King gleam afar like a tower of gold. 
When he first acted Macbeth, in 1875, and when he 
repeated the performance, in 1888, he introduced the 



MACBETH 485 

visible Ghost of Banquo, in the Banquet Scene, in 
accordance with the old stage custom, but ultimately 
he discarded that expedient and left the spectre 
to the perceptive imagination. His earlier practice, 
in closing that scene, was to take a blazing torch 
from a sconce on one of the pillars of the "room of 
state" and then, turning away, to become suddenly 
again frenzied with fear and horror, dash the torch 
to the ground, muffle his face in his robe and reel 
against the pillar, — Lady Macbeth, meanwhile, kneel- 
ing at his feet and gazing up at him in sympathetic 
agony. That extravagant business he did not retain. 
His final treatment of the situation was to move 
toward the back of the scene, where there were several 
wide, shallow steps, — the Queen walking at his right 
and assisting him to move. When the steps were 
reached the Queen ascended, so as to be a little above 
him, and he paused, his extended right arm resting 
in her grasp, and after a moment, as though by hor- 
rible, irresistible compulsion, he slowly turned till 
his gaze could settle on the empty stool, at which he 
looked with an awful glare of terror, his eyes grow- 
ing wide and wild, and, through contraction of the 
facial muscles, his long mustache fairly bristling with 
fright. The picture, over which the curtain descended, 
was afflicting and terrible. "Macbeth" was acted, on 
the occasion of the revival in 1888, 151 times — a 



486 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

much longer run than has been obtained for that 
tragedy at any other time or in any other place. 
It was during that season that the accomplished 
Herman Vezin acted Macbeth, in Irving's place, the 
latter being ill, from January 17 to 26, 1889. 



TOMMASO SALVINI. 

In Acting there are two basic elements, — the thing 
that is done and the method that is employed in doing 
it. In Salvini's acting the method, generally, was 
unimpeachable, but in his representations of Shake- 
spearean character the thing done was almost invari- 
ably wrong. His Macbeth was less false to Shake- 
speare than his Othello; there was some fidelity in 
his ideal; but his assumption of the Thane was 
neither as coherent, as massive, nor as potent and 
overwhelming as his assumption of the Moor. He 
appeared as Macbeth, for the first time in America, 
on February 10, 1881, at Booth's Theatre. The figure 
that he presented was that of a huge, hirsute, heavily 
amied warrior. His hair was red and very -long, 
his beard thick and tangled, obscuring his face. He 
was arrayed in skins and woollens and he wore a large, 
spiked helmet, provided with towering wings. There 
was no denotement in either liis aspect or demeanor 
of the haunted condition of Macbeth's mind. He 



MACBETH 487 

represented him, substantially, as a barbaric chief- 
tain, living and fighting in a barbaric age. His 
histrionic skill was effectively shown in Macbeth' s 
peculiar contemplation of King Duncan, at their first 
meeting, his manner of listening to Banquo's words 
about "allegiance," his expression of Machetlis 
remorse after the commission of the murder, and 
his abrupt transition from delirium to courtesy, in 
the Banquet Scene. The chief merit of his per- 
formance was his fine delivery of the speech beginning 
"Methought I heard a voice cry 'Sleep no more!' " 
His behavior after the murder of the King was in 
purpose both terrific and piteous, yet it was so 
obviously mechanical that no effect of pathos resulted 
from it. The despairing cry "Wake Duncan with 
thy knocking!" was given in a quick, sharp tone, 
indicative of nothing but impatience. No effect of 
intent, ominous preoccupation was produced by his 
manner of reply to the question (usually asked twice) 
"Goes the king hence to-day?" at the awful moment 
when the murderer is awaiting the discoveiy of the 
murder. The manner of Salvini's Macbeth toward 
his wife was merely domestic, commonplace, such as 
might befit a John Mildmay, and his speech was 
colloquial, — a kind of manner and speech that is 
distinctly inharmonious with poetical tragedy. The 
treatment of the Dagger Scene was conventional and 



488 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

ineffective. Macbeth is a haunted man, from the 
first, and the actor of him should convey that im- 
pression. Salvini did not, at any moment in the 
performance, convey it. No sense was imparted by 
him of the influence of "supernatural soliciting." The 
intention to indicate an ambitious mind fatally tempted 
and a vacillant will propelled into crime might have 
existed, but it was not decisively shown. The spec- 
tator, never enthralled by the performance, was left 
free to observe with cool attention the professional 
mechanism of it. At the close of Macbetlis colloquy 
with the villains whom he employs to murder Banquo 
those wretches tried, with fawning servility, to seize 
the hem of his regal robe, and thereupon he repulsed 
them with a deportment of imperial disdain and a 
momentary shudder. The Ghost of Banquo, gory 
and besmirched, was, in the Banquet Scene, produced 
in the King's chair and likewise brought up through 
a trap-door, and Macbeth raved and ranted and 
gesticulated, in the spectral presence, after a con- 
ventional manner. For one fleeting moment, though, 
the actor imparted a thrill of terror when he swiftly 
hid his head in liis robe. At the end of the Caldron 
Scene he became insensible and fell, headlong, and 
Hecate and the Three Witches reappeared and hov- 
ered over him, with mysterious, grewsome gestures. 
That unwarranted expedient, — which is directly at 



MACBETH 489 

variance with the text and also interruptive of the 
action, — together with the introduction of the Third 
Murderer, usually omitted in Act III., Sc. 3, and 
the slaughter of Banquo in the presence of the audi- 
ence, were the chief novelties of stage business in 
Salvini's singularly unimaginative, even prosaic, 
representation of the tragedy. 

VARIOUS MENTION. 

Descant on individual performances of Macbeth 
might be prolonged till "the crack of doom" to which 
he refers. The line of them, seemingly, is endless, and 
so is the critical discussion of them. Mention here 
of a few names which have been associated with the 
part will usefully augment a record which cannot be 
made absolutely complete. George Bennett, Junius 
Brutus Booth, Edmon S. Conner, Frederick B. Con- 
way, Charles W. Couldock, Charles Dillon, Barton 
Hill, George W. Jamieson, Charles John Kean, 
Charles R. Pope, James Booth Roberts, William E. 
Sheridan, George Vandenhoff, Daniel Wilmarth Wal- 
ler, James William Wallack, Charles F. Coghlan, and 
Joseph Haworth acted Macbeth, and all those per- 
formers, except Bennett, were seen on the American 
Stage. Bennett was an actor of the Kemble school, 
and his repertory included not only Macbeth but 



490 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

Hamlet, Shylock, Othello, lago, and Richard the 
Third. His performances were described by the old 
critic James A. Heraud as of a "rough and vigorous 
character, with a tinge of poetic extravagance in 
them." Junius Brutus Booth, as Macbeth, was 
highly commended for much and various excellence 
and especially for his skill in speaking false sentiments 
with pretended sincerity. George Frederick Cooke, as 
Macbeth, according to Leigh Hunt, "exhibited nothing 
but a desperate craftiness." 

Many years have passed since William Creswick 
was seen on our stage, and the memory of his acting 
has gradually faded. He was a man of gentle 
temperament, a ripe scholar, and in his profession 
exceptionally able, amply experienced, and liighly dis- 
tinguished. His acting was uninspired, but it was 
impressive by reason of fine intelligence and winning 
sincerity. Characters which are intellectual and con- 
templative rather than those which are passionate 
seemed to be the more influential in arousing his sym- 
pathy and eliciting his best art. In 1871 he acted at 
Booth's Theatre as Macbeth, in association with Char- 
lotte Cushman, gi\ang a performance which, while some- 
what inert, was replete with finely suggestive touches, 
indicating a right comprehension of the character and 
an expert method of expression. Macbeth's delirium 
of remorse and horror, after the commission of the 



MACBETH 491 

murder, was effectively exhibited, and in the pathetic 
moments at the close of the Banquet Scene, when the 
guilty wretch collapses under the strain of fear and 
horror, the humanity wliich suffuses Shakespeare's 
conception of the part and which is essential to a 
right representation of it was strongly emphasized 
and touchingly conveyed. 

George Vandenhoff, son of the more renowned 
English actor John Vandenhoff (1790-1861), was a 
popular representative of Shakespearean characters 
sixty years ago, and his performance of Macbeth, 
which was seen as late as the time when Charlotte 
Cushman finally left the stage, was much admired 
in its day. He was an accomplished artist, presenting 
every part that he played in a symmetrical form and 
enhancing the symmetry of his artistic fabrics by the 
melody and grace of Ms elocution. His manifestation 
of Macbeth's mental strife, — the last effort of Ms bet- 
ter nature to withstand evil impulse, immediately be- 
fore the murder of Duncan, — was in the highest degree 
affecting, and at the moment of the knocking at the 
gate he expressed affrighted consciousness of guilt 
and terror of discovery in a way to thrill the heart. 
He created an overwhelming effect of pathos, also, 
in showing the agony of a remorse which yet cannot 
impede the deadly purpose of "slaughterous thoughts," 
in the scene, Act III., Sc. 2, precedent to that of 



492 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

the Banquet, when he is found by Lady Macbeth, 
alone and brooding over crimes that have been com- 
mitted and crimes that must follow. The touching 
lines "Duncan is in his grave," etc., as spoken by him, 
were made to impart an infinitude of desolation. A 
sense of completeness of artistic finish rather than 
of emphatic points lingers in recollection of Van- 
denhoff's Macbeth. Around the whole personation 
there was a poetic atmosphere of mingled splen- 
dor and gloom, as when the fading sunset light 
is slowly obscured by the clouds of impending 
storm. 

Charles Coghlan applied to Macbeth a "natural" 
method, in itself pleasing but not appropriate. His 
evolution of the power and pathos of the part was 
sluggish and indefinite. His reading of the text 
was often beautiful. He expressed the weak will of 
the haunted murderer but not his misery, yet his 
voice and action at "Wake Duncan with thy knock- 
ing" and at "Protest me the baby of a girl" indicated 
a sense of suffering and delirium. He proved unequal 
to the ordeal of the scene of the murder of Duncan, 
but he was exceptionally expressive in the colloquy 
with the Murderers employed to kill Banquo. The 
pathetic passage which follows the disruption of the 
Banquet was omitted, and an astonishing funeral 
service, in which a considerable number of surpliced 



MACBETH 493 

clergymen participated, was instantaneously intro- 
duced, upon the discovery that Duncan had been mur- 
dered. Mrs. Langtry, as Lady Macbeth, was Cogh- 
lan's associate in the presentation of the tragedy, which 
occurred at the Fifth Avenue Theatre, New York, 
on January 21, 1889. 

Josei)h Haworth, an actor of uncommon ability, 
whose style had been formed under the excellent 
influence of John McCullough and in whose death 
the stage suffered a serious loss, attempted the part 
of Macbeth, in association with Mme. Modjeska, in 
1898, but proved unequal to its exacting requirements. 
In March, 1899, when Mme. Modjeska again pre- 
sented the tragedy in New York, Macbeth was under- 
taken by Mr. John E. Kellerd, an admirable, con- 
scientious, ambitious actor, but unsuited both by tem- 
perament and style to that part. 

ROBERT BRUCE MANTELL. 

Robert Mantell's impersonation of Macbeth when, 
November 13, 1905, at the Garden Theatre, New 
York, he first assumed that part in America (he had, 
many years before, acted it, at short notice, in the 
British provinces), was undecided in ideal and melo- 
dramatic in expression, but by study and practice it 
was gradually matured, until it became what now it is, 



494 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

a work of perceptive imagination, cumulative power, 
and evenly sustained and vigorous display. Among all 
the characters drawn by Shakespeare there is no one 
whose speech is as amply replete as that of Macbeth 
is with poetic imagery, and it would seem impossible 
for an actor of sensibility long to continue repeating 
his words without becoming imbued with the weird 
spirit of the character. Mantell, finally, embodied 
Macbeth as a man originally noble and of a kind 
disposition who, at a moment when insatiate ambi- 
tion has made him peculiarly susceptible to wicked 
enticement, is enmeshed by those dark and deadly 
forces of evil which steadfastly contend with good, 
throughout universal life, and thus becomes a remorse- 
ful, tortured, suffering victim. The spectator of his 
performance saw, upon the first entrance of Macbeth, 
an unmistakable warrior, a man of large, powerful, pan- 
oplied frame, outwardly calm but inwardly stirred and 
shaken by conflicting emotions, his face pale, his features 
bold, his hair and mustache dark and long, — enhanc- 
ing in his aspect the element of the picturesque, — 
and his demeanor communicative of a sense of mystery 
and dread. The implied theory, — entirely tenable, — 
was that Macbeth has been brooding over the idea of 
making himself King, and unawares has already been 
approached by those ministers of sin who eventually 
meet him on the "blasted heath" and by "prophetic 




From a photograph 

ROBERT MANTELL AS MACBETH 



MACBETH 495 

greeting" confirm in his mind the purpose of mm-der, 
to make clear his path to a throne. In Mantell's 
treatment of the Heath Scene and the scene of 
the meeting with Duncan and the Princes the furtive 
side glances of the chieftain's luminous blue eyes, 
which, it can be assumed, have been clear and frank 
but which have become suspiciously apprehensive, 
anxiously watchful, and stern because of the secret 
workings of sinister thought, were wonderfully expres- 
sive of a soul at war with itself, and his continuous 
denotement of that conflict, — which grows more and 
more intense until the hour of the assassination and 
thereafter is made agonized by accession of remorse, — 
was alike true in spirit and fine in method, giving 
effect to the pathos of the tragedy and thus fulfilling 
the chief requirement of the part. His speaking 
of "Had I but died an hour before this chance" and, 
later, of "She should have died hereafter" was not 
only eloquent of profound feeling but decisively 
significant of a right comprehension of Macbeth^ not 
as a melodramatic miscreant but as a suffering man. 
It was authoritatively said of Edmund Kean's 
Macbeth that he did not look like a man who had met 
the Weird Sisters. Mantell's Macbeth was seen to 
have been haunted from the first moment, and 
throughout the whole awful experience of temptation, 
crime and remorse, impelled against his will, and 



496 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

in ever increasing agony. The sensibility of the 
performance was acute, the feeling intense, the pas- 
sion volubly uttered, the action, especially at the 
climax of the Banquet Scene, instinct with fiery 
vitality. As the performance proceeded the effect 
of suffering upon the physical condition was indicated 
by the haggard visage, the deepening tones of the 
voice, the fevered manner, and the graying of the 
hair. The actual Ghost was introduced in the Banquet 
Scene, and the effect was exceptionally bad, because 
of bad management of lights and the insignificance 
of the player assigned to act Banquo. The fight 
was one of desperate ferocity. Throughout the latter 
part of the play Mantell's Macbeth was a man 
oppressed alike in mind and body, but defiant and 
terrible. One of liis principal costumes comprised a 
woollen jerkin, reaching nearly to the knees, leathern 
sandal-shoes, thongs twined over tights on the legs, 
a breastplate of leather studded with metal squares, 
chain mail about the neck, a long cloak ornamented 
with fret-work around its edge, a helmet, surmounted 
by a single feather of the eagle, as a plume, and 
having metal wings on either side. He carried, by 
turns as occasion required, a battle-ax, a truncheon, 
and a sword. 

It is by the voice more decisively than by any 
other means that the soul reveals itself. Mantell's 



MACBETH 497 

voice has been injured by hard usage during many 
years of acting in "one-night stands," — by the strain 
put upon it through effort to carry all the weight 
of performances and to satisfy an injudicious public 
taste as to acting, — but it retains much of its original 
quality, character, and power, and it is one of the most 
sympathetic voices now to be heard in our Theatre. 
Though he is often a careless reader those affecting 
speeches of Macbeth which have been mentioned were 
spoken by Mantell as they have not been spoken by 
any actor since the days of Edwin Booth, — in tones 
so melancholy, solemn, and afflicting, so fraught with 
the desolation of a seared, hopeless mind and a broken 
heart, that memory will long treasure them as among 
the most expressive and touching achievements of 
elocutionary art that have been known in recent 
years. Mantell's onlj'' serious competitor in the great 
parts of the legitimate drama on our stage is Edward 
Hugh Sothern, an actor who, in every part which 
both players customarily represent, except Hamlet, 
is distinctly inferior to him. Sothern appears to 
be the more ambitious, for he has wrought liimself 
out of his natural channel: Mantell is, by nature, 
better equipped for the great tragic drama. The 
purpose Sothern has manifested, — to present the best 
plaj'^s in the best manner, — is in the highest degree 
honorable to him: it is a splendid evidence of his 



498 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

sincerity, inflexible determination, and indefatigable 
labor that, being, as he is, distinctively a comedian, 
he has so wrought upon liimself that, while it is not 
a great performance, his Hamlet is the best given 
by any actor now on the American Stage: and that 
achievement seems the more remarkable and is the 
more significant when it is remembered that Sothern 
is also the best Malvolio of our day. But Sothern's 
low stature is a serious disadvantage to him, while 
his unsympathetic voice and often deplorably defec- 
tive elocution, his sometimes finical method, and his 
lack of distinction are still more obstructive. Man- 
tell will never accomplish what once he might have 
done: life's evening is not the time for beginning a 
long journey: but he possesses more natural affinity 
with romantic condition than his rival does, he retains 
much of the fiery spirit, the vibrant nervous intensity, 
and the personal charm which gained victory for him 
long ago, and, though it is not the amplest in degree 
nor always manifested, he does possess true tragic 
power and, in general, a direct and simple style. 
Aside from all consideration of newspaper publicity 
and of material prosperity Robert Mantell, by right 
of what he is and what he does, is the legitimate 
leader of the Stage in America to-day. 



MACBETH 499 

LADY MACBETH. 

Many women have appeared on the American 
Stage as Lady Macbeth. Among them, in the earher 
days of our Theatre, were Mrs. Whitlock, Mrs. 
Merry, JNIrs. Snelhng Powell, Mrs. Charles Gilfert, 
Mrs. Warner, and Mrs. Duff. Mrs. Whitlock was 
Elizabeth Kemble, sister of Mrs. Siddons. Mrs. 
Merry was Anne Brunton; after the death of her 
husband, Robert Merry, the "Delia Crusca" rhymester, 
she married Thomas Wignell, and after his death 
she married William Warren. Mrs. Powell was INIiss 
Harrison. Mrs. Gilfert was Miss Holman, daughter 
of the excellent actor Joseph George Plolman. Mrs. 
Warner was Miss Huddart. Mrs. Duff was Mary 
Anne Dyke, the first love of the poet Thomas Moore, 
who married her sister Elizabeth. Mrs. Duff (1795- 
1857) was declared by many of the most thoroughly 
experienced and capable contemporary judges of 
acting, both in and out of her profession, and like- 
wise by the general public voice, to be perfection as 
a tragic actress. She acted all the great tragic 
heroines in Shakespeare. In later days Lady 
Macbeth has been performed by Mrs. Mason, 
Isabella Glyn (Mrs. Dallas), Mrs. Coleman Pope, 
Mrs. Farren, Julia Dean, Mrs. Barry, INIrs. 
Bowers, Mme. Ponisi, Matilda Heron, Fanny Janau- 



500 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

schek, Clara Morris, Helena Modjeska, and Julia 
Marlowe. 

CHARLOTTE CUSHMAN. 

The most imperial representative of Lady Macbeth 
seen in our time was Charlotte Cushman. It was as 
Lady Macbeth that she made her first appearance 
on the dramatic stage in 1835, at New Orleans, 
and her personation of that part was, for many years, 
a theme of ardent popular and critical admiration. 
In her artistic method there was no defect. She 
embodied the character; she seemed to live it; she 
made her audience oblivious that her exhibition of 
wickedness and misery was mere simulation. Her 
ideal, on the other hand, was almost savage. The 
beauty and the pathos of the tragedy are not fully 
expressed unless the hero and heroine of it are suitably 
invested with attributes of humanity. The wife of 
Macbeth is an instrument in the hands of the powers 
of darkness to effect his ruin. He is not a brutal 
ruffian: she is not a cruel virago. Shakespeare's con- 
ception of the characters will bear the highest esti- 
mate that, rationally, can be put upon them. JNIiss 
Cushman did not make Lady Macbeth a virago, but 
she did make her, — customarily, not always, — essen- 
tially masculine, and seeing her performance as usually 
given the enthusiast of Shakespeare craved for it 



MACBETH 501 

some infusion of that feminine charm by which woman 
captivates and subdues the sterner nature of man. 
Miss Cushman's Lady Macbeth, until the murder of 
King Duncan had been accomphshed, occupied toward 
her consort the attitude of a hard, potent, relentless 
spirit, repressing an almost contemptuous impatience 
of vacillation and weakness. Her affinity with 
him seemed to be of the mind more than of the 
affections, and the words "From this time, such I 
account thy love" fell from her lips without material 
effect. She did not clearly enough indicate the 
humanity and moral sense which must, in nature, be 
supposed to underlie the misery of a human being 
who is continuously and inexorably agonized by 
remorse, and who, for that reason, ends life by suicide. 
There was, consequently, felt to be a certain lack of 
rational sequence between the murderess of the begin- 
ning and the doomed, tortured, horror-stricken 
somnambulist of the end. I have seen Miss Cushman 
act Lady Macbeth when she relaxed her iron rigor 
and imparted to the performance a mournful gentle- 
ness, — especially in the scene of Banquo's dismissal; 
the scene of Macbeth's gloomy and afflicted isolation 
when his wife tries to comfort him; and in those 
moments of agony and desolation which ensue upon 
the broken feast: but usually Miss Cushman's embodi- 
ment, massive, regal, and darkly tragic, exhibited a 



502 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

woman of great physical power and of still greater 
will, and of a fierce, implacable, terrible spirit. A 
lurid light of horror was spread over the whole per- 
formance. The massive identity, breadth and free- 
dom of gesture, blood-curdling atmosphere, wondrous 
facial mobility, magnetic force, intellectual and emo- 
tional life, — flowing into every point of action and 
every tone of utterance, — made up a personation 
which, in grandeur, intensity, and magnificent grace, 
had no parallel on the stage of her time and has had 
no equal since. Her figure, towering above Macbeth 
and pointing beyond him to the coming Duncan who 
"must be provided for," or crouching against the 
door-post of the chamber in which the midnight mur- 
der is afoot, was indescribably awful, and it has not 
passed from the memory of persons who saw it, 
nor will it pass from the most glowing page of the 
annals of our Theatre. She was nobly authoritative 
in the Banquet Scene, and she harrowed the heart 
in depicting the anguish of the sleep-walker, whom 
guilty conscience is hounding into death and hell. All 
her points were made with superb spontaneity and 
precision. 

It was Miss Cushman's opinion — an opinion based in 
part on the frequency of reference to \\ine, drink, 
and carousal, which occurs in the text — that through- 
out the play Macbeth and his wife are more or 



MACBETH 503 

less intoxicated. It was also her opinion that 
they should be stalwart persons, and that the rep- 
resentation of the tragedy should be swathed in a 
sanguinary, semi-barbaric atmosphere. Speaking to 
me about actors of 3Iacbeth, she commented in a 
half-impatient, half-playful tone on the fact that 
they often were ''little men," and I had no doubt 
she was thinking of Edwin Booth and Lawrence 
Barrett, with both of whom she had acted, and both 
of whom were slender and of medium height. I 
sometimes wonder, considering the peculiar views of 
Miss Cushman as to this subject, that her performance 
of Ladfj Macbeth should have been essentially poetic; 
yet essentially poetic it was, in spite of its ferocity. 
Art could do no more toward maldng actual the 
"sightless substances" that "wait on Nature's mischief" 
than it did in her wonderful demeanor, gesture, and 
tones of voice when invoking "the murdering min- 
isters"; when whispering to herself at the door of 
Duncans chamber "The sleeping and the dead are 
but as pictures" ; and, in the awful episode of somnam- 
bulism, moaning, with a long, dreadful, heartbreaking 
sigh, "All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten 
this little hand." The agonized voice in which she said 
"What's done, cannot be undone" fell upon the 
heart as a voice of doom, signifying eternal misery. 
Old records mention "the horrid sigh" of Mrs. Pritch- 



504 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

ard: it could not have been more heartrending than 
the abject, desolate suspiration of Charlotte Cush- 
man in that overwhelming portrayal of hopeless 
anguish. The performance, as a whole, was tradi- 
tional; that is to say, it was in line with the tradition 
of Mrs. Pritchard, Anna Maria Yates, and Sarah 
Siddons, her great predecessors. The achievement of 
Miss Cushman was the infusion of her own great per- 
sonality into the character, — the regal mind, the 
indomitable will, the burning passion, the colossal cour- 
age, — and therewithal she blended the precision and 
smoothness of perfect executive art. The element of 
femininity which it usually lacked has been infused 
into later personations of Lady Macbeth, notably, 
by Ellen TeiTy. Mrs. Siddons, who never acted 
according to her declared theory of the character, but 
made a terrific personality predominant, was the 
first to suggest that Lady Macbeth should be rep- 
resented as a slight, delicate, alluring, blond woman, 
full of fire, but exquisitely feminine, the literal 
opposite of the formidable, tremendous woman whom 
she embodied. Miss Cushman did not invent any 
new business for Lady Macbeth, except that, after 
reading the letter, she put it into her bosom. One 
great foreign actress, Adelaide Ristori, whom I 
have seen in this part, after reading that letter, 
walked to the side of the scene and tossed it away. 




Courtexy of Douglas Taylor 

MRS. SIDDONS AS LADY MACBETH 

AFTER THE PAINTING BV G. H. HARLOW 



MACBETH 505 

as if she were throwing it out of the window! Miss 
Cushman's business of queenlike welcome to King 
Duncan and of a diversified and quieting courtesy 
toward the guests at the banquet was superb in 
execution, but it was not new: Mrs. Pritchard set 
the example. To what extent, if at all, Mrs. Pritchard 
was indebted to stage traditions as to Lady Macbeth 
which had been established by her predecessors in that 
character the investigator finds no means of definite 
ascertainment. Among those predecessors of superior 
ability and merited renown were Mrs. Betterton, 
Elizabeth Barry, Mrs. Yates, and the actress who 
successively was Mrs. Dancer, Mrs. Spranger Barry, 
and Mrs. Crawford. Mrs. Pritchard was not a stu- 
dent. She appears to have been a person of original 
mind and to have acted from intuition and inspiration. 
The chronicles of the stage afford abundant evidence 
that the faculty of acting can exist aj)art from scholar- 
ship and, indeed, apart from a high order of mind. 
Mrs. Siddons told Dr. Johnson that she had never 
seen Mrs. Pritchard. She was thirteen years old when 
Mrs. Pritchard died and at that time was employed 
on the stage in her father's dramatic company, per- 
forming in English provincial theatres. Her first per- 
formance of Lady Macbeth was given in 1779, at the 
age of twenty-four. She was acquainted with the tra- 
dition of Mrs. Pritchard's acting of that part, and to 



506 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

some extent she appears to have followed it. She 
has recorded that on the occasion of her first London 
performance of Lady Macbeth (1785, at Drury Lane) 
she approached it with diffidence and terror and "with 
the additional fear of Mrs. Pritchard's reputation in it." 
Unlike Mrs. Pritchard, however, she was highly intel- 
lectual and a diligent student who thought much 
and reasoned well. No doubt she was willing to fol- 
low good precedents, but she could lead as well as 
follow. Mrs. Pritchard, in Lady Macheth's somnam- 
bulation, had invariably kept the taper in her hand. 
Mrs. Siddons, contrary to the urgent request of Sheri- 
dan, set it down, in order that she might act in accord- 
ance with the text: 

"Doctor. What is it she does now? 

"Gentlewoman. It is an accustomed action with her to seem 
thus washing her hands ; I have known her continue in this a 
quarter of an hour." 



VARIOUS PERFORMERS. 

Charlotte Cushman took her final farewell of the 
stage in 1874, at or about which time the urgent 
necessity of supplying her place seemed suddenly 
and forcibly to impress itself upon the minds of many 
female performers of that period, and representations 
of the part of Lady 3Iacbeth became almost ludi- 



MACBETH 507 

r 

crously frequent, in various American cities, i No 
aspirant for the laurel of Miss Cushman succeeded 
in grasping it, and as one by one the younger dra- 
matic sisters of the retired veteran attempted the feat 
and failed, a voice of impatient remonstrance seemed 
to make itself heard, all round the theatrical welkin, 
exclaiming "Infirm of purpose, give me the daggers!" 
Among the actresses who successively appeared as 
Lady Macbeth were Clara Morris, Carlotta Leclercq, 
Bella Pateman, Mary Prescott (who performed in 
association with Salvini), and Matilda Heron. There 
were others, less known to fame, but of that group 
the most important were Miss Heron and Miss 
Morris. 

Matilda Heron, emerging from retirement, appeared 
in the part on Christmas night, 1874, at Booth's 
Theatre, playing it then for the first time. That 
actress had gained popularity throughout the country 
by acting Cairiille, in an English version of "La 
Dame aux Camelias." In early life she was a beauty 
and throughout her life she displayed both the mag- 
netic power and the eccentricity of genius. Her 
vitality was prodigious and so was her capability of 
expressing emotion, but of dramatic art she possessed 
slight equipment. She had, in her day, appeared in 
widely contrasted parts, — such as Parthenia and 
Juliet, Mrs. Haller and Medea, — but the part in 



508 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

which, at all times, she was best was that of Matilda 
Heron. Her favorite theme for dramatic illustration 
was ruined virtue at war with its miserable fate. Seen 
in any image of that conflict, when her spirit became 
fully aroused, she was seen to be an extraordinary 
woman. She suggested a wild and awful tumult, like 
that of the storm-swept ocean, tossing and raging under 
a midnight sky. Such characters have not frequently 
appeared in stage history, but whenever they have 
appeared their acting has been hailed as magnificent 
for precisely the quality that makes it defective, that 
of disorder. The part of Lady Macbeth involves 
terrible emotions, but it cannot be rightly exhibited by 
use of the method which is called "natural." Miss 
Heron when at her meridian could not have acted it: 
in her decadence her attempt was painfully abortive. 
The ideal was that of a fierce termagant; the execu- 
tion lawless. The performance was characterized by 
cadent elocution, redundant gesture, contortions of 
the face, gyrations of the body, sudden assumptions 
of threatening pose, and general extravagance: 
nevertheless through all its incapability and turbu- 
lence there was a gleam of the strange genius of the 
woman, — always original, and, in herself, interesting 
to the last. 

Clara Morris essayed Lady Macbeth for the first 




F,:n„ ., ,.ln.t..ir'J 



Courtesy of Evert .7(i»>.„ \l. „,lell 



CHARLOTTE CUSHMAX AS LADY MACBETH 



MACBETH 509 

time in New York on May 17, 1875, at Booth's 
Theatre, the Enghsh actor George Rignold then, 
for the first time, acting Macbeth. Miss Morris wore 
a blond wig, but otherwise dressed the part in a 
conventional manner. She appeared to have appre- 
hended it as that of a fascinating young woman who 
sways her husband by personal charm. She moved 
with a willowy motion, evinced intensity of feeling 
by distention of the nostrils, employed tigerish little 
smiles, and was a charming modern person assisting 
at a murder in a mediaeval castle. In the Sleep- 
walking Scene her simulation of suffering was 
expert and effective. The traditional business, as 
made authoritative by Charlotte Cushman, was copied 
in the Banquet Scene and, indeed, throughout the 
representation. Clara Morris, who long ago retired 
from the stage, was, in her best time, an admirable 
exponent, — as Matilda Heron had been, — of emotional 
conflict in the woman whom passion or circumstance 
has caused to be untrue to herself or has entangled 
in a web of amorous complication or domestic adver- 
sity. She was capable of great ground-swells of 
emotion and could powerfully affect the feelings of 
her audience, but her art was wild, except at rare 
moments when she chose to control herself, and she was 
hopelessly out of place in poetic drama. She turned 



510 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

verse into prose and was literal in everything. Her 
representation of Lady Macbeth was neither imagina- 
tive nor powerful. 

Fanny Janauschek's performance was stalwart and 
predominant, exhibiting all the harsh and fierce 
properties of the character. Her person was massive, 
her countenance severe, her style remarkable for 
authority, distinction, and exactitude of finish, and 
for splendid breadth of gesture. 

Fanny Morant, the best Mrs. Candor of her time, 
made Lady Macbeth^ which part she performed in 
association with Edwin Booth, a violent shrew who 
might have driven her husband to the ale-house, — 
had there been such resorts in his period, — but would 
never have been instrumental in making him a 
regicide. 

Helena Modjeska, who adoj^ted the part into 
her repertory in 1888, acting with Edwin Booth, 
retained it till the last. Her ideal was the one set 
forth in print by Mrs. Siddons but never set forth 
by her on the stage. That ideal would make of Lady 
Macbeth an enchanting woman whose power over her 
husband springs from allurement, and who impels 
him to crime because she loves him and passionately 
desires his advancement to a throne. Mme. Modjeska 
possessed little or no aptitude for tempestuous 
tragedy, and alike in temperament and style she was 



MACBETH 511 

unsuited to Lady Macbeth, her performance giving 
no manifestation of the power and the terrible intensity 
of wicked purpose that are in the character. Her 
puny sarcasm and petty taunts, in prompting Macbeth 
to murder Duncan, exemphfied nothing of that "valor 
of the tongue" with which, like an inexorable angel 
of evil fate, the terrible woman had determined to 
"chastise" all the weak scruples of her irresolute 
"partner of greatness." Her exit, carrying the 
imbrued daggers, was singularly ineffective, for that 
proceeding, which, by itself, usually compels absorbing 
interest, became, in her treatment of it, merely inci- 
dental. One piece of her stage business was new and 
also it was infelicitous: she produced one of Macbeth's 
letters and showed it to him, as documentary evi- 
dence that he had sworn to kill the King and was 
therefore inexorably bound to do so. In the Sleep- 
walking Scene she was, however, entirely great, — an 
image of wonderful, woful beauty, pallid, haggard, 
spectral, profoundly pathetic. Like Helena Faucit 
and Ellen Terry, she failed to unify, in a credible 
character, an inflexible purpose of murder, treacherous 
and cruel, with a condition of intrinsic feminine love- 
liness. There is, indeed, formidable difficulty in the 
way of investing with sweet attributes and human 
propensity a woman who has invoked the demons 
of hell, saying 



512 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

"Unsex me here 
And fill me, from the crown to the toe, top-full 
Of direst cruelty. . . . 
Come to my woman's breasts 

And take my milk for gall, you murdering ministers, 
Wherever in your sightless substances 
You wait on Nature's mischief!" 

Yet human attributes she must possess, for through 
them she suffers and is driven to death. The foreign 
lingual cadence of Mme. Modjeska's enunciation of 
the English verse served to weaken her tragic effort, 
by infusion of prettiness. 

Ellen Teriy, in her embodiment of Lady Macbeth, 
placed strong emphasis on the feminine fascination 
that the wife exercises over the husband, and in that 
respect she supplied the element that was wanting 
in the performances given by Charlotte Cushman and 
her imitators. On the other hand, she greatly lessened 
JLady MachetJi's attributes of power and will, impart- 
ing no considerable sense of the deadliness of her 
bloody-minded resolution, the iniquity of her conduct, 
and the grisly horror that enshrouds her life. The 
predominant note in her performance was that of 
pathos. This was inevitable, because of the tempera- 
ment of Ellen Terry, clearly displayed in her great 
characteristic performances, such as Shakespeare's 
Ophelia and Goethe's 3Iargaret. Her portrayal of 



MACBETH 513 

JLady Macbeth' s poignant remorse was profoundly 
truthful and irresistibly affecting. She excelled in 
the expression of bleak, hopeless misery in the closing 
moments of the Banquet Scene and in the agony 
of the Sleep-walking Scene. Her appearance, in 
rich raiment befitting a Queen, was stately and 
exceedingly beautiful. She wore a close-fitting green 
robe, encircled by a jewelled girdle, and a voluminous 
blue mantle, with long, wide-flowing sleeves. Her 
hair was golden red, abundant, and worn in two 
very long, heavy braids depending on either side 
of her face. 

Helena Faucit (Lady Martin), who in performance 
of Lady Macbeth preceded Ellen Terry by forty-two 
years but survived to witness the triumphs of her 
distinguished successor, set the example of presenting 
the character as essentially feminine, — her theory being 
that Lady Macbeth, in urging Macbeth to the act 
of murder and participating with him in "the guilt 
of our great quell," is impelled by the wife's absorb- 
ing love for the husband and her passionate desire 
that his ambition to wear the crown shall be gratified. 
Miss Faucit measurably disliked the part and dreaded 
being, at any time, constrained to play it, but when 
she did she exhibited a gentle spirit urged into crime 
by the violent impulse of passionate love, and divested 
it of all ferocity and placed the emphasis on the 



514 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 



A 



pathos of its suffering. Her excellence was, it would 
seem, shown only in the Banquet Scene and the Sleep- 
walking Scene. Macready, in association with whom 
she first played the part, particularly commended her 
acting in those passages, saying that in the latter 
her walk was "heavy and unelastic," and that she 
marked "the distinction between the muffled voice and 
seeming mechanical motion of the somnambulist and 
the wandering mind and quick fitful gestures of a 
maniac, whose very violence would waken her from the 
deepest sleep." Her embodiment of Lady Macbeth 
has been designated as "fascinating and persuasive." 
That of Ellen Terry might be fitly described in the 
same words. Neither, it is obvious, was more than 
half right. 

THE SPIRITUAL ELEMENT. 

As observation investigates the past and thought 
ranges the long avenues of memory, reviewing the 
numerous and zealous efforts that have been made to 
interpret the wonderful tragedy of "JNIacbeth," the 
mind realizes a profound impression of genius, intel- 
lect, study, passionate devotion, and noble endeavor, 
ardently employed on that terrible subject. Next 
to "Hamlet" among the plays of Shakespeare "Mac- 
beth" has awakened the deepest interest and caused 
the most extensive controversy, the reason being that, 




,/, hfi Wiinh.ir ,11, 'I (,r,.rr I : .j ,,, rif/ht 

ELLEN TEKRY AS LADY MACBETH 



MACBETH 515 

like "Hamlet," it opens the vast, mysterious realm 
of spiritual life, the boundless environment of the 
unknown, the abj^ss of the universe, into which all 
thinking persons sooner or later peer with anxious 
eyes, awestricken and perplexed. Whence did we 
come and whither are w^e going? Does death end 
all, or is it only the portal to life? Do angels of light 
and angels of darkness hover over us, to make or mar? 
Is the individual human being a waif of chance, or 
a creature of the fixed decree of Fate? Those con- 
siderations and others like to them are in the depths 
of all analysis of the vast subject of "Macbeth." 
Imagination has not in any work of literature taken 
a higher flight than it takes in that tragedy. The 
theories and the technical expedients of the great 
actors who have attempted illustration of it possess an 
intrinsic interest for the student of dramatic art, but 
the greater value of their testimony is the help wliich 
it provides toward clarification of our thought on the 
conditions of human life and the destiny of Man. 



VII. 
KING HENRY VIII. 

"A little ride, a little sway, 
A sunbeam in a winter^s day. 
Is all the proud and mighty have 
Between the cradle and the grave." 

— ^JoHN Dyee. 

HISTORICAL COMMENT. 

The play of "King Henry VIII.," neither sym- 
metrical in construction nor uniform in style, com- 
mingles the constituents of spectacle with those of 
drama, but while it is not a rounded work of 
art it depicts with affecting fidelity the ruin of 
greatness and illustrates with deep admonitory sig- 
nificance the mutability of fortune and the transi- 
torj^ lot of man. The expedient employed by Shake- 
speare to precipitate the downfall of Wolsey, — that 
of causing the Cardinal, through haste and inadver- 
tence, to inclose to King Henry a private letter, 
respecting the divorce of Queen Katharine, which 
he had intended to send to the Pope of Rome, 
together with an inventory of his wealth, — was drawn 
from Holinshed's "Chronicle." (That admirable com- 

516 



KING HENRY VIII. 517 

mentator Dyce remarks that in "King Henry VIII.," 
"Frequently we have all but the very words of 
Holinshed.") No such mistake was ever made by 
Wolsey, but such a mistake actually was made by 
Thomas Ruthall, who held the office of Bishop of 
Durham from 1509 till 1522. That ecclesiastic had 
been ordered to prepare a record of the estates of 
the kingdom, to be delivered to Wolsey. He told 
his servant to bring from his study a book bound 
in wliite vellum. The servant obeyed, bringing, by mis- 
chance, another book, bound in white vellum, which 
contained an account of Ruthall's private possessions, 
and that volume was despatched to the Cardinal. 
It appears to have shown that some of the Bishop's 
gains had been ill-gotten. Ruthall, dismayed by 
that unlucky exposure of his secret affairs, soon 
afterward died, of humiliation and shame. Expert 
use of that mishap is made in the drama (Act III., 
Sc. 2), providing one of the best pieces of the action, 
and, for the actor of Wolsey, one of the most telling 
passages — the soliloquy which ends 

" I shall fall 
Like a bright exhalation in the evening, 
And no man see me more." 

There is in this play a considerable disregard of 
the actual sequence of historic events. In the first 



518 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

scene there is intimation that war between England 
and France is then current, and one incident of the 
scene is the arrest of the Duke of Buckingham, on a 
charge of high treason. The Duke was arrested 
April 15, 1521, but war with France had not then 
been declared by England, and, in fact, was not 
declared till May, 1522. In the play King Henry 
the Eighth and Anne Bullen meet, Act II., Sc. 4, 
prior to the execution of Buckingham, — w^hich occurred 
on May 17, 1521, — whereas, in fact, they did not meet 
till some time in 1527. In the play the marriage of 
Anne Bullen to the King is made to occur prior to 
Wolsey's disgrace and death: in fact, Wolsey had been 
dead nearly three years when that marriage was 
solemnized: the great Cardinal died on November 
29, 1530. King Henry and Anne Bullen were 
privately married in January, 1533. In the play 
Wolsey's death is immediately followed by that of 
Queen Katharine: in fact, she survived him nearly six 
years, djang on January 8, 1536. The play represents 
that Queen Katharine had died prior to the birth of 
Queen Anne's daughter, the Princess Elizabeth, 
whereas, in fact, the death of Queen Katharine did 
not occur till more than two years after that birth, — 
the Princess Elizabeth having been born on September 
7, 1533. In the play Cranmer appears before the 
hostile Council, Act V., Sc. 2, and subsequently 



KING HENRY VIII. 519 

assists at the christening of the Princess: in fact, it was 
not till eleven years after that christening that the 
Council summoned him and endeavored to effect his 
disgrace. Discrepancy, however, is not unnatural 
between Drama and History. The supposed time of 
this play is about one year; the events to which it 
relates were strewn over a period of many years, — at 
least from 1520-21 till 1544. The ages of the prin- 
cipal characters at the beginning can be determined, 
approximately if not exactly, by reference to the 
veritable dates of their birth and death. The Nor- 
folk of this play was the second duke bearing that 
title, who, as Lord Surrey, commanded at the battle 
of Flodden Field, September 9, 1513. He died 
May 21, 1524. The Surrey of the play was Thomas, 
eldest son of the second Duke of Norfolk. He, as 
Lord Howard, was in "command of the main body 
of the first line" at Flodden (Hume). He was 
created Earl of Surrey in 1514, at the same time 
that his father was made Duke of Norfolk. This 
Surrey was, in life, the father of that Henry Howard, 
statesman, soldier, and poet, who, as Earl of Surrey, 
was decapitated, January 21, 1547, by order of King 
Henry the Eighth. He had, at that time, succeeded 
to the title of Duke of Norfolk and he escaped the 
fate of liis son Henry only through the fortunate 
death of the King. It is, in several instances, desir- 



520 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

able for the sake of dramatic effect that the ages 
of persons implicated in this play should be shown 
on the stage as greater than, in fact, they were at 
the time of its beginning. The date of the birth 
of Anne Bullen is given as 1501 and also as 1507. 
If the latter be correct — as there is reason to believe — 
she would not have been of marriagable age in 1520. 
Queen Katharine was eight years older than King 
Henry. Assuming that the play begins in 1520, the 
following table shows the actual ages, at that time, 
of some of the characters in it; 

Age 
Born Died in 1520 

King Henry the Eighth 1491 1547 29 

Queen Katharine 1483 1536 37 

Thomas Wolsey 1471 1530 49 

Thomas Cromwell 1490(?). . .1540 30 

Campeius (Campeggio) 1474 1549( ?) . . .46 

Gardiner 1483 1555 37 

Norfolk 14— 1524 (?) 

Surrey .> 1473 1554 47 

Anne Bullen 1501 1536 19 

COSTUME. 

The play of "King Henry VIII." is especially 
suitable for representation as a spectacle. Holbein's 
portraits of King Henry, of several of his wives, and 
of Cardinal Wolsey and. Thomas Cromwell, engrav- 



KING HENRY VIII. 521 

ings of which are accessible, provide authority as to 
costume. The learned and instructive scholar Charles 
Knight gleaned from old writers, — largely from Hall 
and Cavendish, — much information as to dress, and the 
following brief citations, condensed, from the product 
of his devoted industiy are usefully illustrative of 
custom in King Henry's time: 

"Sumptuary laws regulated dress. The use of the fur of 
the black jennet was reserved to the royal family and only 
noblemen above the rank of a viscount could wear sables. Crim- 
son or blue velvet, embroidered apparel, or garments bordered 
with 'gold sunken work,' were restricted from all persons 
beneath the quality of a baron's or knight's son or heir. Per- 
sons who possessed as much as two hundred marks per annum, 
and those only, were allowed to wear velvet dresses of any 
color, furs of martens, and chains, bracelets, and collars of 
gold. The sons and heirs of such persons were permitted to 
wear black velvet or damask, and tawny-colored russet or 
camlet. Satin and damask gowns were allowed only to persons 
who possessed at least one hundred marks a year. Knights could 
wear plaited skirts, garnished with gold, silver, or silk, but these 
garments were forbidden to all persons of lower rank. The hair 
Avas, by peremptory order of the King, cut close to the head. 
Beards and mustaches were worn, at pleasure. Cavendish de- 
scribes Wolsey as issuing forth in his Cardinal's habit of fine 
scarlet or crimson satin, his cap being of black velvet. The 
gentlemen in his train wore black velvet livery coats, and large 
chains of gold around their necks, while his yeomen, who fol- 
lowed his gentlemen retainers, were clad in French tawny livery 
coats, embroidered on the backs and breasts with the letters 



522 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

T and C, under the Cardinal's hat. Feathers were worn in 
profusion." 

The attire of Queen Anne when she went in proces- 
sion from the Tower to Westminster on the day 
before her coronation is thus described: 

"She wore a surcoat of white cloth of tissue, and a mantle 
of the same, furred with ermine, her hair hanging down from 
under a coif, with a circlet about it, full of rich stones." On 
the next day, when she went to the Abbey to be crowned, she 
wore "a surcoat and robe of purple velvet, furred with ermine, 
the coif and circlet as before. The Barons of the Cinque 
Ports, who carried the canopy over her, were in crimson, with 
points of blue and red hanging on their sleeves." The ladies, 
"being lords' wives," that followed her, "had surcoats of 
scarlet with narrow sleeves, the breast all lettice [fur], with 
bars of borders [i.e., rows of ermine], according to their de- 
grees, and over that they had mantles of scarlet furred, and 
every mantle had lettice about the neck, like a neckercher, 
likewise powdered [with ermine], so that by the powderings 
their degree was known. Then followed ladies, being knights' 
wives, in gowns of scarlet with narrow sleeves, without trains, 
only edged with lettice." The Queen's gentlemen were simi- 
larly attired with the last. The Lord Chancellor wore a robe 
of scarlet, open before, and bordered with lettice. The dukes 
were in crimson velvet, furred with ermine, and powdered 
according to their degrees. The Duke of Suffolk's doublet 
and jacket were set with Orient pearl; his gown of crimson 
velvet, richly embroidered ; and he carried a white rod in his 
hand, being that day high steward of England. The Knights 
of the Bath wore "violet gowns with hoods purfled with min- 
iver, like doctors." 



KING HENRY VIII. 523 

THE PLAY. 

Conjecture has long been busy with the play of 
"King Henry VIII.," which was first pubhshed in 
the 1623 Folio. The date of its composition is not 
known, neither is the date of its first presentment 
on the stage. Some Shakespeare editors, among 
them Theobald, Malone, and Dr. Johnson, main- 
tain that it was produced before the death (1603) 
of Queen Elizabeth; other Shakespeare editors, 
among them Collier, Dyce, and Knight, contend 
that it was not produced until after the acces- 
sion of King James the First. A favorite belief is 
that it was performed, under the title of "All is 
True," on June 29, 1613, at the Globe Theatre, 
London, on which occasion the discharge of small 
cannon, — perhaps in the Coronation Scene, Act IV., 
Sc. 1, or, more probably, in the scene of King 
Heni'y's entrance, as a masker, at a festival in the 
palace of Cardinal Wolsey, Act I., Sc. 4, — set fire 
to the theatre and caused its destruction. Controversy 
on this subject hinges mainly on the Prologue to the 
play and the speech delivered by Cranmer at the 
christening of the royal infant. 

Two plays relative to the story of Cardinal Wol- 
sey, — one of them being ascribed to Henry Chettle, a 
printer, publisher, and dramatist of Shakespeare's 



524 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

time, of whose biography Httle is known, but with 
whom, according to ColHer, three other dramatists, 
Michael Drayton, Anthony JNIunday, and Went- 
worth Smith, cooperated in making a drama about 
the illustrious Cardinal, — were acted in London 
in 1601, and the usually careful editor Malone 
assigns Shakespeare's "King Henry VIII." to that 
year. The play is one that would have pleased 
Queen Elizabeth more than it could be supposed 
likely to please her successor. King James the First. 
That Queen delighted in servile adulation, and she 
exacted abject deference to her authority, but her 
sense of delicacy was not such as is easily shocked. 
There is no reason to suppose that Queen Elizabeth 
would have resented Queen Katharine's eminently 
queenlike statement of her position or been displeased 
by a representation of the gallant behavior of King 
Henry the Eighth, her father, on the occasion of 
his meeting with the fair Anne BuUen. She knew the 
reason why he had desired and procured the annul- 
ment of his marriage to Katharine of Arragon, 
and though the demeanor of King Henry toward 
Anne Bullen, in the Masque Scene, is that of a bold 
and expeditious wooer, it is not such as Queen Eliza- 
beth's coarse taste would have regarded as unseemly. 
On the other hand. King James had no reason 
to revere the memory of Queen Elizabeth, who is 



KING HENRY VIII. 525 

specifically honored in Shakespeare's play, that sov- 
ereign having kept his mother, Queen Mary of Scot- 
land, for eighteen years incarcerated in prison, sub- 
jected her to indignity, and finally sent her to death, 
on the block; and it is known that, in fact, he 
abhorred her memory. The speech which is delivered 
by the Arclihisliop of Canterbury in the scene of 
the christening was well calculated to please Queen 
Elizabeth, but it does not contain anything, aside 
from the lines of homage to her successor, likely to 
have gratified King James. Those lines, — seventeen 
in number, beginning "Nor shall tliis peace sleep 
with her," and ending "Thou speakest wonders," — 
break the continuity of the address, but they serve 
the purpose of adulation of a vain monarch, notori- 
ously susceptible to flattery. As suggested by 
Theobald, they probably were interpolated into 
Cranmer's encomium some time after the first pre- 
sentment of the play, when Queen Elizabeth had 
died and King James had ascended the English 
throne. Shakespeare himself might have inserted 
them, or they might have been inserted by another 
hand, possiblj^ that of Ben Jonson. 

It has been surmised that the offering of the play 
in the summer of 1613 was prompted by a wish to 
profit by contributing to the general public rejoicing 
incident to the marriage of the Princess Elizabeth, 



526 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

daughter of King James, to Frederick V., the Elector 
Palatine. That marriage occurred about the middle 
of the previous February, and it is hardly reasonable 
to suppose that the production of an "historical 
masque or show play" (Coleridge) intended as a 
spectacle apposite to that occasion would be deferred 
till the end of June, a period of more than four 
months. In the absence of definite, decisive infor- 
mation it seems probable that Shakespeare's "King 
Henry VIII." was first presented toward the end of 
the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and that the play called 
"All is True," acted in 1613, with disaster to the 
Globe Theatre, was Shakespeare's play, revived for an 
occasion, and altered in such a way as to make it 
acceptable to the time of King James. The com- 
pliment to that monarch, supposing it to have been 
then first inserted in the text, miscarried, because 
the theatre caught fire before the performance had 
reached the Christening Scene, and Cranmer's 
honeyed words, occurring in the last act, were not 
spoken. No record has been discovered of the cast 
of "All is True," but among the Harleian Manu- 
scripts there is a letter, addressed by the Rev. 
Thomas Lorkin to Sir Thomas Puckering, dated 
"this last of June, 1613," in which a reference is 
made to the burning of the Globe Theatre: "No 
longer since than yesterday, while Bourbage his com- 



KING HENRY VIII. 527 

pany were acting at the Globe the play of Henry 
VIII and there shooting of certain chambers in way 
of triumph, the fire catch'd." The implication would 
seem to be that Burbage participated in the rep- 
resentation. If so he would have played one of the 
principal parts, — either King Henry or Cardinal 
Wolsey, — for he was then in the prime of his renown. 
Contemporary reference to "All is True" sometimes 
calls it by that name and sometimes by the name of 
"Henry VIII." 

No mention has been found of any presentment of 
this drama in the interval between 1613 and 1663, 
the interval, roughly speaking, between the period of 
Burbage and that of Betterton. Shakespeare's manu- 
script remained in the possession, and at the mercy, 
of Heminge and Condell, the managers, who owned 
it, from the time when the play was first performed 
(whatever time that may have been) till the time 
of its first publication. To what extent or by what 
hand (if at all) it may have been altered after the 
death of Shakespeare, 1616, and before it was pub- 
lished, 1623, investigation has failed to discover. 
Modern scholarship has assumed that, because of 
certain peculiarities of the versification, notably the 
use of "double endings," much of the play must 
have been written by some hand other than that 
of Shakespeare, and John Fletcher has been named 



528 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

as possibly or probably the dramatist who thus 
contributed to it, because the use of double end- 
ings was, with him, habitual. That theory, like other 
theories, which, resting on surmise and not on evi- 
dence, would discredit Shakespeare's authorship of 
his writings, is merely conjectural. It was suggested 
(1850) by the accomplished scholar James Sped- 
ding (the J. S. of Tennyson's beautiful elegiac 
verses), whose conclusion was that, in writing the 
play of "King Henry VIII.," Shakespeare had pro- 
ceeded "as far, perhaps, as the third act, when, find- 
ing that his fellows of the Globe were in distress for 
a new play with which to honor the marriage of the 
Lady Elizabeth, he handed them his manuscript," 
and that they intrusted it to Fletcher, "already a 
popular and expeditious playwright," to be com- 
pleted. The surmise was ingenious and it has been 
widely accepted. It is, however, visionary and ground- 
less. If a practice of writing blank verse with a 
new kind of line, — a line containing more than the 
usual ten syllables, or with frequent "double end- 
ings," — chanced to become prevalent, it is not unlikely, 
as remarked by the great Shakespeare scholar J. 
O. Halliwell-Phillipps, that Shakespeare might have 
been influenced by it, and might have adopted it. 
"Expeditious" Fletcher may have been, but there 
is abundant reason to believe that Shakespeare was 



KING HENRY VIII. 529 

at least quite as much so, and that he could him- 
self have finished liis play with equal despatch. It 
would be amusing, if it were not painful, to obsei've 
the assurance with wliich theories about Shakespeare 
are adopted and proclaimed as established facts, some- 
times by thoughtful commentators from whom a 
larger measure of discretion might reasonably have 
been expected. In reference to the general practice 
of idle conjecture relative to Shakespeare and his 
writings the late Albert Henry Smyth, — the ablest 
literary critic who has appeared in our country since 
the golden day of Edwin P. Wliipple and that marvel 
of intellectual faculty Henry Giles, and one of the 
most accomplished of Shakespeare scholars, — wrote 
this refreshing protest against the evil of such com- 
mentary : 

"There has been a great throwing about of brains over 
the determination of the chronology of Shakespeare's plays. 
In some vain hope of approaching nearer to the personal life 
of Shakespeare, the scholars of the Shakespearean Guild have 
occupied their wit and ingenuity in dividing the poet's career 
into definitely marked periods, and seeking for a parallel 
between the works of each period and the events, ascertained 
or imaginary, of Shakespeare's life. The old Shakespeare 
Society, represented by Halliwell, Thom, Dyce, Collier, and 
Peter Cunningham, scrutinized Elizabethan documents for 
every rag and remnant of external evidence bearing upon 
dramatic history. When in 1874 the New Shakespeare Society 
was founded, an original method of inquiry into questions of 



530 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 



chronology and authorship was instituted. Mr. Hales, in two 
lectures upon the occasion of the founding of the society by 
Mr. F. J. Furnivall, that indefatigable king of clubs, defined 
seven tests for determining the growth of Shakespeare's mind 
and art from the witness of the plays themselves : ( 1 ) ex- 
ternal evidence, (2) historical allusions, (3) changes of 
metre, (4) changes of language and style, (5) power of 
characterization, (6) dramatic unity, (7) knowledge of life. 
Metrical tests soon overshadowed everything else in the soci- 
ety's works, Shakespeare was turned into a calculation table 
for the enumeration of feminine endings, stopt lines, middle 
caesura, weak endings, middle extra syllables, and for the ex- 
periment of the initial trochee test, pause test, prevalent word 
test, and choric reflection test. Out of these researches and 
the development in the so-called aesthetic criticism is of such 
uncouth terminology as 'first reconciliation period,' 'second 
recognition period,' etc., etc., there was constructed an ideal 
biography of Shakespeare. And without being actually ad- 
vanced a single step in our knowledge and enjoyment of the 
Shakespearean drama, we were told to recognize in the order 
of the plays as fancifully set forth by the commentators the 
whole of Shakespeare's spiritual experience. We were to see 
him 'in the workshop, in the world, out of the depths, and 
on the heights.' Moreover, the New Shakespeare Society 
made much of the discovery of strange hands in Shakespeare's 
text. This reference of dubious or dolorous lines to anony- 
mous or conjectural aliens is as old as Coleridge, who, like 
Simpson, of Edinburgh, who was unalterably convinced of the 
infallibility of Euclid, fancied it impossible for Shakespeare to 
drowse, and so pronounced all his faults to be the intrusion 
of some unknown playwright. Our better informed critics 
identify the perpetrator of the outrage and brand upon him 
his mischievous meddling." 



1 



KING HENRY VIII. 531 

BRITISH STAGE.— KING HENRY, 

The first positively recorded representative of King 
Henry the Eighth was John Lowin, one of the best 
actors of Shakespeare's time, and in contemporary 
favor second only to Richard Burbage. Authentic 
assurance is furnished by Downes that Lowin was 
instructed by Shakespeare himself as to the perform- 
ance of this part. Lowin, born in 1576, lived to be 
eighty-two years old, became very poor in his latter 
days, kept an inn, called The Three Pigeons, at 
Brentford, and died there, in 1658. Sir William 
Davenant (1605-1668), was acquainted with the act- 
ing of Lowin, and when, in 1663, he cast the part 
of King Henry the Eighth to Thomas Betterton, he 
instructed that actor relative to the method of his 
admired predecessor. Betterton's performance was 
accounted essentially royal, and the example of stal- 
wart predominance, regal dignity, and bluff humor 
thus set has ever since been followed. Barton Booth 
imitated Betterton, and when Quin assumed King 
Henry he avowedly, but not successfully, imi- 
tated Booth. In this part Quin is described 
as having been ungraceful in manner, deficient of 
the requisite facial expression, and vocally weak. 
Booth, on the contrary, satisfied every requirement of 
it. There was grandeur in his personality, vigor in 



532 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

his action, and at times a menace in his look which 
inspired terror. In life King Henry, as the reader 
of the excellent memoir of Wolsey by George Caven- 
dish clearly perceives, was essentially selfish, despotic, 
tyrannical, capricious, and capable of cruelty. In 
Shakespeare's delineation of liim the rigor of his 
character and the harshness of his temper have been 
much softened, and while he is shown as egotistical, 
haughty, arbitrary, impetuous and self-willed, he is 
credited with a certain amiability, a sense of justice, 
good humor, and even geniality of disposition. It 
appears that he was thus represented, with admi- 
rable fidelity and effect, by Booth. That actor's 
enunciation of "Go thy ways, Kate," after the 
Queen's majestic exit from the Trial Scene, was 
considered exceptionally expressive of the King's 
character and humor. 

Specific information as to details of the dressing of 
King Henry the Eighth by the early English actors 
cannot be obtained. Kings, on the stage, in the seven- 
teenth and eighteenth centuries, wore scarlet cloth 
ornamented with gold lace. Sometimes an opulent 
nobleman, patron of the drama, would give to a 
favorite actor the costume that he had worn at the 
coronation of the reigning monarch, and that was 
considered and used as an appropriate garb for the- 
atrical majesty. Burbage, if he acted King Henry, 






KING HENRY VIII. 533 

wore robes of red and gold. Betterton and his fol- 
lowers continued the custom, but as it was well 
known that King Henry wore his hair short they dis- 
carded the usual ramillies when playing that part. 
Davies declares that King Richard the Third and King 
Henry the Eighth were garbed in something like 
appropriate costume, while suitability of attire, in 
presentment of the cooperative characters, was, for the 
most part, disregarded. As late as the beginning 
of the nineteenth century the actors who personated 
the ecclesiastics in "King Henry VIII." wore such 
garments as had been worn by the Protestant Epis- 
copal clergy of the time of King Charles the Second, 
while some other participants in the performance wore 
accoutrements of the time of King George the Third. 
The chronicle of notable performers of King Henry 
the Eighth, in England, includes the names of 
Matthew Clarke, John Palmer, Joseph George Hol- 
man, Alexander Pope, Francis Aicken, Thomas 
Abthorpe Cooper, George Frederick Cooke, George 
Barrett, John Ryder, Walter Lacy, William Terriss, 
and Arthur Bourcliier. The list is not complete. 

BRITISH STAGE.— CARDINAL W0LSE7. 

On the occasion (1663) when for the first time 
Betterton acted King Henry the Eighth his asso- 



534 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

ciate and competitor Henry Harris acted Cardinal 
Wolsey, "doing it," says Downes, "with such just 
state, port, and mien that I dare affirm none hitherto 
has equalled him." The word "hitherto" refers to 
the period of about sixty years immediately 
prior to 1663, as to which period theatrical 
history affords comparatively little exact and par- 
ticular information. Harris was a painter and a 
singer as well as an actor. He was a profligate 
person, but he was possessed of dramatic talent of 
a high order, and it is certain that his ability was 
versatile, for he excelled as Romeo and also as 
Sir Andrew Aguecheek. He was one of the intimate 
friends of Samuel Pepys, the quaint diarist, and a 
portrait of him as Wolsey is in the Pepys Library 
at Cambridge, England. Detailed description of 
his performance of the Cardinal has not been 
found. He was prominently succeeded on the old 
London stage by John Verbruggen, 1706; Colley 
Gibber, 1723; Anthony Boheme, 1725; Lacy Ryan, 
1743; West Digges, 1772; Robert Bensley, 1772; 
John Henderson, 1780; Alexander Pope, 1786; John 
Philip Kemble, 1805; William Charles Macready, 
1823; Charles Mayne Young, 1844; and Samuel 
Phelps, 1844. On the Irish Stage Wolsey was acted 
by Henry Mossop, in 1751. 

Opinion as to the diversified representations of 



KING HENRY VIII. 535 

Wolsey that were given by those actors, long passed 
away, must necessarily, now, be somewhat vague. 
Such records of them as exist are in almost every 
case meagre. Authorities are often misleading. 
Adjectives, sometimes laudatory sometimes condem- 
natory, are freely employed, but at best they sel- 
dom do more than convey general impressions. Few 
details are furnished showing precisely what the actor 
did and how he did it. Verbruggen is commended 
as fine in Cassius but is scarcely more than mentioned 
as Wolsey. He was a pleasing actor, apparently 
exuberant, lawless, and defective in art. Gibber is 
credited with a suave demeanor and a clever assump- 
tion of crafty deference in the Trial Scene, but he 
lacked dignity and he was incapable of a convincing 
show of serious feeling. One recorder mentions that 
when, in Wolsey's soliloquy on the King's marriage, 
he said "This candle burns not clear, 'tis I must 
snuff it," he made a gesture with his fingers as 
though he were using a candle-snuffer. Another and 
more propitious recorder, Charles Macklin, stated 
that he did ample justice to Wolsey. Boheme had 
been a sailor, and he walked with a straddle, but 
he was tall and of good presence, and he excelled 
in pathetic passages, so that his delivery of Wolsey's 
Farewell may have been touching. Ryan was a 
judicious actor, of respectable abilities, and his per- 



536 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

fonnance of Wolsey was creditable. Digges is said 
to have marred by extravagance of gesture a per- 
formance which otherwise would have been perfect. 
Mossop could express the pomp and severity of the 
part, and he is praised for energetic delivery of the 
text, but his demeanor was awkward. Bensley, who 
had been an officer in the British army (he served in 
America at one time), was a formal, correct, con- 
scientious actor, — a good Malvolio, — but he did not 
make a special mark as Wolsey. Henderson, superb 
as Shylock, lago, and Fcdstajf, was notable in Wolsey 
only for his correct elocution. Pope possessed a 
fine voice but an inexpressive face; he excelled, never- 
theless, in moments and passages of pathos, and his 
Wolsey was effective in the scene of the great min- 
ister's fall. Kemble, Macready, and Young must each 
have been magnificent as the Cardinal^ for each 
possessed intellectual character, dignity, scholarship, 
stately presence, and facile command of the resources 
of expressive art. Phelps gave an intellectual, noble, 
austere, touching performance of Wolsey, invariable 
in its dignity, singularly expositive of a politic char- 
acter, and in the parting scene with Cromwell pro- 
foundly affecting. A superb portrait of Phelps as 
Wolsey, painted by Johnston Forbes-Robertson, adorns 
a wall in the Garrick Club, London, and will preserve 
to a distant posterity the expressive lineaments of an 




SAMUEL PHELPS AS CARDINAL WOLSEY 

AFTER THE PAINTING BY JOHNSTON FORBES-ROBERTSON 



KING HENRY VIII. 537 

authentic image of passionate grief commingled with 
desolate submission. 

Later representatives of Wolsey, on the British 
Stage, were Charles John Kean and Henry Irving, 
each of whom acted the part in America as well 
as in England. Herbert Beerbohm-Tree also has 
acted it in England, but liis performance has not 
(1911) been seen in America. Kean made a fine 
production of "King Henry VIII.," at the Princess's 
Theatre, London, in 1855. Irving produced it, at 
the London Lyceum, January 5, 1892. When Kean 
made his fourth and last professional visit to America 
(his previous visits had been made in 1830, 1839, 
and 1845), he began his engagement at the theatre 
which had been Wallack's (situated in Broadway, 
near Broome Street, then called the Broadway, long 
ago demolished) with "King Henry VIIL," appear- 
ing as Wolsey, with Mrs. Kean (Ellen Tree) as 
Queen Katharine.. Colman's comedy of "The Jealous 
Wife" was acted as an afterpiece. Irving presented 
"King Henry VIIL" at Abbey's, now the Knicker- 
bocker, Theatre, New York, on December 4, 1893. 

AMERICAN STAGE. 

On the American Stage the play of "King Henry 
VIIL" has not been, at any time, especially popular. 



538 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

The first performance of it in America occurred at 
the old Park Theatre, New York, May 13, 1799, on 
which occasion it was acted for the benefit of Mrs. 
Barrett, who played Queen Katharine.. That actress 
had come from England about two years earlier, and 
her acting in tragic parts had gained esteem. In 
England she had been known as Mrs. Rivers, and 
stage chronicles mention her as having been instructed 
by Macklin, with whom, at the beginning of her 
professional career, she acted Portia. No description 
has been found of her acting of Queen Katharine, 
but as she was tall, of a noble aspect, and possessed 
of ability and experience, it can reasonably be assumed 
that she gave a good performance. On the occasion 
named. Cardinal Wolsey was acted by her husband, 
Giles Leonard Barrett, while Cromwell was assumed 
by Cooper. Other presentments of "King Henry 
VIII." in the early American Theatre were few, but 
in every instance they are associated with distin- 
guished names. On October 2, 1811, the play was 
acted at the old Park, with George Frederick Cooke as 
King Henry, Mrs. Stanley ( Mrs. Twistleton, — Stanley 
being an assumed name) as Queen Katharine, Cooper 
as Wolsey, and Edmund Simpson as Cromwell. On 
April 29, 1834, at the same theatre, when Fanny 
Kemble and her father, Charles Kemble, were fulfill- 
ing an engagement there, it was represented for her 



KING HENRY VIII. 539 

benefit, that beautiful and brilliant woman, then 
only twenty-three years of age, acting Queen Kath- 
arine, and her father acting Wolsey. On that occa- 
sion the effect of the appearance of celestial phantoms, 
in the Vision Scene, was heightened by the vocalism 
of Emma Wheatley, who sang the solemn song, by 
Handel, "Angels Ever Bright and Fair," then for 
the first time thus introduced. Four years later, at 
the National Theatre, in Church Street, New York, 
Emma Wheatley (1822-1854) herself appeared as 
Queen Katharine, John Vandenhoff being the Wol- 
sey and Henry Wallack the King. Miss Wheatley, 
only sixteen years old when thus she ventured to 
assume one of the most majestic characters in Shake- 
speare, — a character that no mere girl ever did or 
ever could really impersonate, — was regarded as a 
prodigy of genius and beauty: in 1837 she became 
the wife of Mr. James Mason and soon afterward 
retired from the stage. In 1847 "King Henry VIII." 
was produced at the old Bowery Theatre, New York, 
with Ehza Marian Trewar (Mrs. Shaw, afterward 
Mrs. T. S. Hamblin), a remarkably beautiful woman 
and a fine actress, as the Queen. 

The part of King Henry the Eighth has been 
acted in America by Lewis Hallam, H. B. Harrison, 
Henry Wallack, Thomas Sowerby Hamblin, Daniel 
Wilmarth Waller, John Gilbert, William Rufus 



54>0 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 



JBlake, John Jack, William Terriss, and Otis Skinner. 
The King's age, in the plaj^ is 29. Otis Skinner 
presented him as a young man, — therein wisely and 
for the first time in American theatrical history (pre- 
ceded only by William Terriss, in England), depart- 
ing from the stage custom, which has been to present 
him as an elderly, portly person, — according to Hol- 
bein's portrait. 

Cardinal Wolsey has been acted in America not 
only by Kean and Irving, but, among others, by 
Macready, 1827; Charles Walter Couldock, 1849; 
Charlotte Cushman, 1857; Edward Loomis Davenport, 
1858; John Gilbert; WiUiam Creswick, 1871; Milnes 
Levick, 1874; George Vandenhoff, 1874; Lawrence 
Barrett; Edwin Booth; John McCullough, and John 
A. Lane, 1892. Gustavus Vaughan Brooke's embodi- 
ment of Wolsey was shown in Australia, and enthu- 
siastic encomium of it is cited from the Melbourne 
press by his judicious biographer, W. J. Lawrence, 
of Comber, Ireland. 

KEAN.— CRESWICK.— VANDENHOFF.— BOOTH. 

Kean's Wolsey, which it was my privilege several 
times to see, was remarkable for intellectual char- 
acter, grim power, and an austere refinement which, 
more than ecclesiastical, was spiritual. His aspect 






KING HENRY VIII. 541 

was noble, his demeanor majestic. His pale face, 
dark, bright eyes, massive brow, and iron-gray hair 
suited the part. He wore robes of scarlet cloth 
adorned with lace. His manner, at first, was that 
of repose, but it was lofty and predominant. The 
glance that he directed toward the defiant Bucking- 
ham as he paused, after partly crossing the scene, 
on his first entrance, seemed literally to pierce his 
enemy. In King Henry's presence his bearing was 
that of obsequious but not sei^ile deference. His 
handling of the ruinous papers that the King returns 
to Wolsey, combined with changes of facial expres- 
sion, a ruminative pause, and then an utterance of 
hopeless surrender, was supremely eloquent. In speak- 
ing the lines which incorporate the reference to the fall 
of Lucifer he stretched his arms upward and forward, 
conveying a grand image of the poet's thought, and 
then, upon the sad cadence of the verse, completely 
collapsed, uttering the abject desolation of a broken 
spirit in the four simple words, "never to rise again." 
Kean's delivery was often marred by a nasality of 
speech, and his acting was not illumined by those 
flashes of lightning which are said to have character- 
ized that of his renowned father; but he was a noble 
actor, and his performance of Wolsey made actual 
on the stage an ideal that rose to the full height of 
the poet's conception. 



542 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

Creswick's j)erformance of Wolsey was notable for 
intense mental concentration, symmetry of method, — 
the gradual exliibition of the character as wrought 
upon by changing circumstances, — momentary flashes 
of wrath, as of an old lion turned at bay, — and 
ample effusion of feeling at the pathetic close. The 
last words that Wolsey utters were spoken by Cres- 
wick in a way which affected the listener to tears and 
impressively pointed that moral, the vanity of worldly 
greatness, which Shakespeare's portrayal of the great 
Cardinal is so well designed to convey. Perhaps the 
most telling moment of Creswick's performance was 
that of fiery, tumultuous anger, suddenly curbed into 
contempt, at the vulgar insult given to Wolsey by 
Surrey (Act III., Sc. 2), when the Cardinal, restrain- 
ing himself by great effort, exclaims: 

" How much, methinks, I might despise this man, 
But that I'm bound in charity against it." 

George Vandenhoff's acting of Wolsey, especially 
indicative of intellectual character, was marked by 
exquisite refinement and it gave simple expression 
to a clear ideal. He was tall and slender and his 
fine countenance, somewhat suggestive of the picture 
of Addison, commingled in its expression austerity 
and kindness. His manner was formal. He had 
been educated (at Stonyhurst) for the Bar. "I 



KING HENRY VIII. 543 

practised law" (so wrote Vandenhoff in 1878), "in 
Liverpool, for three years, but in an evil hour quitted 
wig and gown to don sock and buskin, and so it 
happens that to-day I play Henry the Eighth's Lord 
Chancellor, having forever cut myself off from the 
possibility of being Queen Victoria's." By tempera- 
ment he was well fitted to the part of the Cardinal. 
He acted it in association with Charlotte Cushman, 
and his performance skilfully combined the outward 
calm and inward disquietude of the ambitious, crafty, 
resolute, potent schemer. His elocution was superb, — 
his finely modulated tones giving every shade of 
meaning to the poet's text. During the scenes that 
precede the downfall of Wolsey he maintained a per- 
fect poise, holding deep feeling in careful restraint, 
but through an artfully curbed demeanor he allowed the 
observer to perceive, in the worn face, the fiery eyes, 
and the air of vigilant self-control, a passionate heart 
and a towering mind, so that when the collapse came 
and the conflict of a storm-tossed soul was laid bare 
the spectator was less surprised than touched by the sad 
fulfilment of all which had been indicated of latent 
power and passionate emotion. There were no violent 
outbursts in the performance: it was fluent and even. 
Edwin Booth acted Wolsey for the first time on 
December 13, 1876, at the Arch Street Theatre, Phila- 
delphia, and on January 19, 1878, he played the 



544 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

part for the first time in New York, at Booth's The- 
atre. His stage version of the play compressed it 
into four acts, the third of which contained only 126 
lines. Later, when editing his "Prompt Book," I 
induced him to add an abridged Fifth Act, which 
appears in the printed copy. Scrupulous attention was 
given to the dressing of the play. Booth's embodiment 
of Wolsey was interesting and impressive but the 
part did not deeply stir his feelings and he did not 
greatly care for it. He was essentially a tragedian 
and his genius required tragedy as a vehicle. The 
pervasive quality of his performance was poetic con- 
dition. He presented a noble image of authority 
tempered by exquisite grace, and he denoted austere 
intellect and the capability of subtle craft. No actor 
has appeared in our time who could better present the 
aspect of ecclesiastical majesty. The points usually 
made by actors of this part, — in the soliloquy about 
Anne Bullen and King Henry, at "How much, 
methinks, I might despise this man!" and at Wolsey' s 
exit with Campeius, — were admirably made by him, 
and, as always, his elocution was superb, — especially 
in the parting scene with Cromwell and when he spoke 
those solemn words: 

" Had I but sei'ved my God with half the zeal 
I serv'd my king, he would not, In mine age. 
Have left me naked to mine enemies." 




Courteaii of Erert J«ii\iii Weiuh'U 

HENRY IRVING AS CARDINAL WOLSEY 

AFTER THE DRAWIXG BY J. BERNARD PARTRIDGE 



KING HENRY VIII. 545 

HENRY IRVING. 

Henry Irving's Wolsey commingled in one sym- 
metrical identity the stately ecclesiastic, the suave diplo- 
matist, the commanding statesman, and the polished, 
elegant, highly intellectual man of the world. He wore 
chimere, rochet, mantle, and red hat, and his tall 
figure, ascetic face, piercing eyes, authoritative hear- 
ing, incisive speech and incessant earnestness of per- 
sonification combined to make the performance 
impressively life-like and deeply sympathetic. He 
employed, as Kean had done, the traditional business 
relative to Buckingham, in the opening scene, — a 
scene in which the Cardinal, sure of his ground, is 
perfectly composed. In the Trial Scene his manner 
toward the King was profoundly respectful and 
toward the Queen bland, almost humble, ingratiating, 
and speciously ingenuous. Wolsey, until the moment 
of the catastrophe, is continuously dissimulating, and 
Irving's impersonation was remarkably indicative of 
that condition — alert, vigilant, full of transitions from 
assumed candor to subtle artifice, this being revealed 
to the audience by a deft use of the expedient of 
transparency. Touches of mordant sarcasm, — as 
when, replying to Campeius, he said, in a dry tone, 
"We live not to be grip'd by meaner persons," and 
when, in the moody soliloquy on the King's marriage, 



546 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

he murmured "I'll no Anne Bullens for Mm," — here 
and there lit the performance with a biting gleam of 
humor. There was, in the scene of defeat and ruin 
and in the delivery of the Farewell, a touching sim- 
plicity of grief and resignation, together with an 
impressive impartment of profound knowledge of 
human suffering. 

When Irving effected his first production of "King 
Henry VIII." (January 5, 1892, at the London 
Lyceum) , the play was acted 172 times. That Shake- 
spearean revival was the most costly one made by 
Irving and one of the most costly ever made. The 
large sum of $60,000 was expended on it. The public 
is often told that great amounts of money have been 
spent in setting plays, but, in fact, such expenditure 
seldom occurs. The gross receipts during the run of 
"King Henry VIII." at the Lyceum were nearly 
$300,000, but the cost of the production combined with 
that of keeping the play on the stage considerably 
exceeded that income. The pageant, practically 
unchanged, was brought to America. An example of 
Irving's scrupulous fidelity as an actor is quoted by 
his biographer, Austin Brereton. "A friend of mine," 
said Irving, "possessed an old cardinal robe of just 
the color that Wolsey wore, and I sent my robe to 
Rome to be dyed like that; but the old tint was no 
longer used there and I had it reproduced in London. 



KING HENRY VIII. 547 

If I am told that this was a prodigal caprice, I reply 
that it was quite in keeping with Wolsey's taste. 
When you are getting into the skin of a character, 
you need not neglect his wardrobe." Irving got more 
completely "into the skin" of Wolsey than any other 
actor of the part has done, in our time, or, apparently, 
in any time, for he not only made the poetic ideal an 
actuality but garnished it with many peculiarities 
of the man. In further justification of his lavish 
expenditure on the play Irving said "If you look 
into the Italian archives of the period you will find 
that the ambassadors were astonished at his [Wolsey's] 
magnificence." It is not necessary to search "the 
Italian archives" for testimony to the prodigal opu- 
lence with which the Cardinal invested his proceed- 
ings, whether abroad or at home. The account of his 
splendor that is given by Cavendish would amply sub- 
stantiate any showing of gorgeousness, however 
resplendent, that might be made. Norfolk's glowing 
account of The Field of the Cloth of Gold, — where 
"every man that stood showed like a mine," all 
"order'd by the good discretion of the right reverend 
Cardinal of York," — is not exaggerated. One striking 
felicity of Irving's performance of Wolsey was its 
intimation, from the first, of an element of goodness 
in the character, operative notwithstanding pride, 
arrogance, and craft: the revulsion of feeling in the 



548 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

CardinaVs farewell to greatness was consequent on 
this, and therefore natural and credible. Another 
felicity, one of stage business, was seen at the close of 
the colloquy between Queen Katharine and the two 
Cardinals. Irving caused the Queen, when they were 
leaving the room, at "Come, reverend fathers," to 
reject the proffered arm of Wolsey and accept the 
assistance of Campeius, and as those two went out he 
made Wolsey pause and gaze after them with an 
expression of mingled compassion and contempt, as 
though pitiful of the Queens broken state, resentful 
of her obvious antipathy toward him, ruminant as to 
the best way in which to make her sensitive feeling 
and her pride useful in managing the King, and 
contentedly perceptive that her health was gone and 
her influence no longer considerable. 



BUCKINGHAM AND GARDINER. 

The character of the Duke of Buckingham, — proud, 
self-assertive, and of an imperious temper in his 
prosperous day, but simple, manly, patient, and 
pathetic in his ultimate state of ruin and in the hour 
of death, — can be made exceedingly effective on 
the stage. Robert Wilks acted the part, in 1723, and 
by his fine discrimination between impetuosity at the 
beginning and nobility of resignation at the close 



KING HENRY VIII. 549 

invested it with superlative dramatic importance. 
Johnston Forbes-Robertson, acting at the London 
Lyceum Theatre, in 1892, in Irving's production of 
*'King Henry VIII.," gave a memorably dignified, 
gentle, and touching performance of the unfortunate 
nobleman, presenting an image of innate aristocracy, 
and doing especial justice to the moving eloquence of 
the Duhes farewell speech. Impressive performances 
of Buckingham have been given on the American 
Stage by Charles Wheatleigh, Milnes Levick, Beau- 
mont Smith, and Frank Cooper. 

Stephen Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester (1485- 
1555), was a bigoted, austere, and cruel person, and 
in the play he is represented as arrogant and vin- 
dictive. The part, nevertheless, in the eighteenth 
century, was thought to be susceptible of facetious 
treatment and was customarily allotted to an eccen- 
tric or low comedian. Thus, Ben Johnson acted 
it, in 1723; John Hippesley, in 1743; William Par- 
sons, in 1777; and Richard Suett, in 1788. Men- 
tion is made of a player named Taswell, prompter at 
Drury Lane, who, performing Gardiner, carried a 
crutch and in following the Archbishop of Canter- 
bury, when making the exit at the close of the scene 
of the Primate's discomfiture of the hostile Council, 
shook that implement, derisively, over Cranmer's head! 
Parsons also used a crutch when playing Gardiner. 



550 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

BRITISH ST AG^.— QUEEN KATHARINE. 

It is a fact of common knowledge that before 
1660 all characters in plays performed in England, 
whether male or female, were presented by men or boys. 
Some one of the twenty-six male persons named 
in the list prefixed to the First Shakespeare Folio 
as "the principal actors in all these plays" was, 
presumably, the first performer of Queen Katharine. 
The first woman who ever acted the part was Mary 
Betterton, wife of Thomas, she having cooperated 
with her husband in the representation of "King 
Henry VIII." which was given at Lincoln's Inn 
Fields in 1663. No description of her acting in it 
is extant, but she was highly esteemed as an actress 
and it can be reasonably assumed that she gave a 
competent performance. The Vision Scene (Act IV., 
Sc. 2), in which the death-stricken Queen asks for 
music and presently lapses into slumber, and then, 
on the stage, into death, was elaborately treated as 
a spectacle, in the time of Mrs. Betterton, and that 
method, required by ample and explicit stage direction 
in the Folio, was followed in the time of her distin- 
guished successors, EHzabeth Barry, 1706; Mary 
Porter, 1721; and Hannah Pritchard, 1743. Mrs. 
Porter, tall, fair, not handsome, but impressive by 
reason of great dignity and winning by reason of 



KING HENRY VIII. 551 

acute sensibility, is said to have acted to perfection 
such parts as Shakespeare's Hermione., in "The 
Winter's Tale," Otway's Belvidera, in "Venice 
Preserved," Queen Elizabeth, in John Banks's "The 
Unhappy Favorite" (a play based on the story of 
the Earl of Essex, that ill-starred lover of Queen 
Elizabeth), and Leonora, in Dr. Young's "The 
Revenge." Her embodiment of Queen Katharine 
was admired by her contemporaries, and the dramatic 
chronicles of her day commend it for royalty of 
demeanor, depth of feeling, and grace of sympathetic 
expression. Her voice was tremulous. She specially 
excelled in her delivery of the Queen's adjuration to 
the King, in the Trial Scene. In early life she had 
attended on the fascinating Elizabeth Barry, and it 
is probable that she formed her style on the model of 
that great actress. Mrs. Pritchard, who succeeded her 
in this character, was accounted majestic in deport- 
ment and natural in method of speech, but less effect- 
ive upon the feelings of the audience. Mrs. Porter 
and Mrs. Pritchard dressed Queen Katharine in imita- 
tion of the attire worn by royal persons of their 
period. There is no specific, detailed account of the 
stage business used in this part by those eminent 
performers. Mrs. Porter, in accordance with the 
stage direction, — often disregarded by modern players, 
— knelt before the King, when speaking the Queen's 



552 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

appeal to him, — "Sir, I desire you do me right and 
justice," — and she pathetically suppressed her tears, 
when uttering the Queen's retort upon the Car- 
dinal, — a treatment of the situation which was much 
admired. 

SARAH SIDDONS. 

It is not until Mrs. Siddons comes upon the scene 
that the investigator of this subject finds particular 
mention of striking expedients that were employed 
in the acting of Queen Katharine^ and even then the 
specifications of stage business are not numerous. In 
1788-89 John Philip Kemble, at Drury Lane, 
revived "King Henry VIII.," making a new stage 
version of it, — which was published in 1804, — and 
giving special attention to scenery, costumes, and 
processions. All was done that his sound scholarship 
could warrant and his liberality of expenditure com- 
pass to make the production splendid. Mrs. Siddons 
acted Queen Katharine. Robert Bensley appeared 
as Wolsey. Kemble "doubled" in the characters of 
Cromwell and Griffith (reserving his essay in Wolsey 
till a later time, when he acted that part with dis- 
tinguished success) . That was the occasion when Mrs. 
Siddons made her first appearance as the Queen. 
The peculiar, expressive business, — haughty, imperious, 
and openly and grandly hostile, — of pointing at Wolsey 



KING HENRY VIII. 553 

and addressing liiin without looking at him, in the 
Trial Scene, when Queen Katharine deUvers the 
trenchant speech beginning, "Lord Cardinal, — to you 
I speak," was invented by her, and her pause after the 
word "Cardinal," and the marked emphasis, incisive 
and scornful, that she placed on the word "you" 
were accounted wonderfully expressive. That point 
in the performance was chosen for representation by 
George Henry Harlowe, when he painted the spirited 
picture of the Trial Scene in which John Philip, 
Charles, and Stephen Kemble and their inspired sister 
are well portrayed. To Mrs. Siddons also is due 
the excellent, because natural, informing, effective 
business of restless movement in the preliminary part 
of the Vision Scene, that of a person in persistent 
physical pain, who vainly tries to find ease in change 
of position and to maintain composure under acute 
suffering. Some of the business devised by Mrs. 
Siddons became traditional, and later was employed 
by Mrs. Warner, Isabella Glyn, Charlotte Cushman, 
Emma Waller, Genevieve Ward, Fanny Janauschek, 
Ellen Terry, and Helena Modjeska. The beautiful, 
pathetic Eliza O'Neill played the part, but she was 
not suited to it and she did not consider herself to 
be so. Mrs. Warner acted Queen Kathanne when 
Phelps produced "King Henry VIII.," April 10, 
1844, at Sadler's Wells Theatre, and her perform- 



554i SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

ance was accounted majestic and tender, — a noble 
image of royal womanhood, gracious in her eminence 
and patient in her distress. That fine actress (she 
was Mary Amelia Huddart, — born 1797, died 1854), 
it is interesting to remember, visited America, appear- 
ing at Burton's Theatre, New York, September 22, 
1851, as Hermione, in "The Winter's Tale," but she 
was not seen on our stage as Queen Katharine, 



AMERICAN STAGE.— QUEEN KATHARINE.— CHARLOTTE 

CUSHMAN. 

Charlotte Cushman as Queen Katharine was the 
consummate image of sovereignty and noble woman- 
hood, austere and yet sweetly patient, in circum- 
stances of cruel injustice and bitter affliction. Her 
identification with the essential nature of the injured 
Queen was so complete that it made the spectators 
of her performance forget the stage and feel that they 
were looking upon a pathetic experience of actual 
life. Her portrayal of this character was the im- 
pressive revealment of a great soul. Only a woman 
of the loftiest spirit could thus have interpreted and 
made actual Shakespeare's beautiful conception. It 
was innate grandeur of character that made Char- 
lotte Cushman so great in this part. There was in 
her artistic treatment of it a wonderful felicity of 




r; 6. 

to O 

% I 



KING HENRY VIII. 555 

smoothness, — the blending of womanly tenderness with 
stately manner, the union of dignity with grace, the 
deft conjunction of intellectual power with spiritual 
humility: she spontaneously exhibited the natural 
fluctuations of emotion, and she spoke the magnificent 
language with a perfect sense of its meaning and 
with splendid effect: her performance was a heart- 
breaking image of oppressed virtue, dethroned 
majesty, and a soul of inflexible goodness that no 
adversity could shake: but aside from all that she did 
as an actress there was a singular magnetism in what 
she was as a woman — a strange, wild charm, such as 
sometimes seems to hallow the lonely ocean, in the 
gloaming and on the eve of tempest — a magic of 
genius which, while it separated her from the race of 
usual women, made her the interpreter of all women, 
the symbol of all their sorrows, the voice of all their 
longing and aspiration. That charm flashed from her 
luminous eyes and trembled in her sympathetic voice. 
It was at once power and weakness, gladness and grief, 
revelation and prophecy. She understood woman's 
nature and she could express it, and of woman's 
nature Queen Katharine is an exceptionally compre- 
hensive type. 

There is supreme satisfaction in seeing on the stage 
a person who possesses imperial mind, stalwart char- 
acter, the faculty to form a great ideal and the artistic 



556 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

ability to embody it; a person of deep feeling but 
also of commanding intellect, whose touches, in the 
art of acting, are as firm and as precisely regulated 
as those of the trip-hammer, — light or heavy as the 
occasion requires and the will ordains; a person who 
makes and sustains the impression of inevitable truth. 
Such was Charlotte Cushman, and such peculiarly 
she showed herself to be when she acted Queen 
Katharine, Her rebuke to the Surveyor, *'Take good 
heed you charge not in your spleen a noble person," 
was spoken with an awful solemnity of tone and 
manner, and in the Trial Scene her delivery of the 
apostrophe to the King, "Sir, I desire you do me, 
right and justice," was at once stately and humble, 
patient and sweet, and in its simplicity deeply pathetic. 
Later, when the indignation of the Queen is strug- 
gling to repress her tears, there was a thrilling, bell- 
like ring in her voice as she said "Lord Cardinal! — " 
and then, after a momentary pause, a withering 
scorn in the tone in which she added "To you I speak." 
All that is superb in the contempt of lofty womanhood 
for duplicity and meanness was expressed by her at the 
moment when the Queen finally repudiates the juris- 
diction of the court and makes her appeal to the Pope. 
The majesty with which she moved across the scene, 
leaving the tribunal of the two Cardinals, cannot be 
described. When the Crier called "Katharine, Queen 



KING HENRY VIII. 557 

of England, come into court," and Griffith, who had 
been walking backward before her, paused and told 
her of the summons, her massive figure fairly towered 
and her large, lurid eyes, — gray-blue, but darkened 
then by emotion, — burned and glowed with anger, as 
she answered, in deep, vibrant tones: 

"What need you note it? Pray you keep your way: 
When YOU are called return. — Now the Lord help ! — 
They vex me past my patience. Pray you, pass on. 
I will not tarry: no, nor evermore, 
Upon this business my appearance make 
In any of their courts." 

And so speaking she passed from the Presence, with 
perfect dignity. In the Queen's subsequent scene 
with the two Cardinals the lovely refinement of 
a pure, sweet nature colored and made at once 
beautiful and pathetic a bitter struggle of virtue 
and innocence against potent malice disguised as 
friendship. 

In the Vision Scene Miss Cushman, following the 
lead of Fanny Kemble, made use of the song "Angels 
Ever Bright and Fair," with Handel's music: it was 
sung off the scene, and it served to deepen the pathos 
of a deeply affecting situation. She highly valued 
that accessory, and Lawrence Barrett, who, as Wolsey, 
had acted with her, told me that when he was leaving 



558 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

her company at the end of his engagement she 
earnestly besought him, if at any time he should ever 
present the play of "King Henry VIII.," not to 
introduce that song, as she was desirous that the 
public recollection of it and of the impressive effect 
it produced should remain undisturbed in association 
with her embodiment of the suffering Queen. Char- 
lotte Cushman's greatest performances were those of 
Queen Katharine, Lady Macbeth, and Meg Merrilies, 
but of the three she chiefly valued the first. The part 
of JLady Macbeth she did not like. 



VARIOUS PERFORMERS. 

Mary Duff left the stage about 1836 and it can 
perhaps safely be assumed that no person now living 
possesses definite remembrance of her performances. 
I have not met with any detailed account of her 
acting of Queen Katharine, but since all the 
printed testimony which has descended from her time 
declares that she was pre-eminentlj'^ and surpassingly 
great in characters that involve pathos, and at the 
same time could splendidly express the workings of 
fierce passion, it seems reasonable to infer that she 
gave a performance which was both noble and 
tender. An actress who was deemed perfection 
by Edmund Kean, J. B. Booth, Cooper, Forrest, 



KING HENRY VIII. 559 

and John Gilbert must have been a dramatic 
genius of the highest order. Mrs. Duff acted the 
Queen on November 30, 1826, at the Bowery Theatre, 
or "the New York Theatre, Bowery," as it was then 
called, — Cardinal Wolsey being personated by WilUam 
Augustus Conway. That faithful chronicler John 
Norton Ireland, who saw the performance, has 
recorded that Mrs. Duff's Queen Katharine was 
"exquisite" — an interesting but not illuminative 
designation. 

Fanny Janauschek (1830-1904), equally remarkable 
as a woman and as an actress, adopted Queen 
Katharine into her repertory in 1874. In that per- 
sonation, which I observed with care and recorded, 
with admiration, a stronger emphasis was laid on the 
inherent potency and predominant royalty of the 
character than on its womanlike elements of sensi- 
bility and gentleness. There was, however, an invol- 
untary spontaneity of feeling in Mme. Janauschek's 
acting, — a native warmth of temperament, — which, 
aided by intense earnestness and scrupulous fidelity 
of executive method, made her deeply interesting. 
She had gained distinction on the stage of Germany 
before she came to America. On October 9, 1869, 
she appeared in New York, at the old Academy of 
Music, acting in German, as Medea. Later, she 
learned English and for many years she traversed the 



560 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

United States, acting, in English, tragedy, comedy, 
and domestic drama. She was a woman of command- 
ing presence, a rich brunette beauty, having regular 
and uncommonly expressive features, dark eyes that 
seemed to glow with interior light, and there was 
in her aspect a singular, lurid repose, as of concen- 
trated calm over slumbering fire. Her expression of 
the Queen's resentment toward Wolsey, in the Trial 
Scene, was fiercely passionate, without sacrifice of 
dignity, and in her exit from the court she was a 
magnificent image of stately sovereignty and 
offended womanhood. 

The most resplendent scenic presentment of 
"King Henry VIII." made in America prior to 
that effected by Henry Irving in 1893 was the one 
made at Booth's Theatre, New York, on September 
23, 1878, under the management of Henry C. Jar- 
rett and Henry David Palmer. The opulence of the 
scenery on that occasion somewhat dwarfed the effect 
of the acting, which nevertheless was exhibitive of 
much and various ability. In the scenic pictures 
accuracy of detail was combined with a charming 
mellowness of color, and old historic places, if not 
literally copied, were faithfully suggested. Two 
tableaus were introduced, — one shovdng the death 
of Wolsey, as described by Griffith in narration to 
the Queen, the other showing the Queen's vision of 



KING HENRY VIII. 561 

"angelic spirits of peace." The scenes of the Coro- 
nation and the Christening — then first shown on the 
American Stage — were made tributary to rich dis- 
play and the spectacle was rounded and closed by 
Telbin's panorama of Old London. Genevieve 
Ward appeared as Queen Katharine^ George Van- 
denhoff as Cardinal Wolsey, J. H. Taylor as King 
Henry, and Milnes Levick as Buckingham. Miss 
Ward, one of the finest minds among women of the 
stage, greatly excelled in exposition of the resolute 
spirit, the authority, and the fortitude of the per- 
secuted Queen, not much softening the sterner attri- 
butes of the character by any infusion of pathos. 
That actress was remarkable for brilliancy, not ten- 
derness, and she was a consunmiate artist, but it 
was in executive rather than injured and suffering 
characters that her excellence was chiefly shown. 



HELENA MODJESKA.— ELLEN TERRY. 

Helena Modjeska, an actress who possessed a magic 
power to charm the fancy and touch the heart, acted 
Queen Katharine for the first time on October 10, 
1892, at the Garden Theatre, New York, and there- 
after retained the part in her repertory till almost 
the end of her career. A dominant beauty of her 
acting, in general, was its blending of intellectual 



562 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 

character with tenderness and grace. She somewhat 
lacked the sustained force required in tragedy, but 
in romantic or domestic drama she excelled. Few 
players have evinced a personality as alluring, a 
style as flexible, an artistic instinct as true, and 
a capability as ample and decisive of identification 
with romantic character and of the dramatic utter- 
ance of deep feeling. The beautiful personal char- 
acteristics of the actress, — ^the delicate features, the 
dark, dreamlike eyes, the soft, gentle voice, and 
the high bred, distinguished manner, — were closely 
indicative of her delicate organization; and the 
intellect that animated her beauty and her art 
was singularly powerful. Modjeska was pecu- 
liarly sympathetic with the part of Queen 
Katharine. There was, indeed, some indication of 
effort in her presentment of its imperial aspect: 
her personality was more harmonious with win- 
ning loveliness than with regal authority and pas- 
sionate resentment, and therefore she was less 
effective in the Trial Scene than in the scenes 
that follow the Queen's dethronement. In the 
Vision Scene, while essentially noble, she was 
supremely pathetic, — the veritable image of fine 
womanhood, uttering, in a melting strain of spon- 
taneous sorrow, a piteous protest against the cruelty 
not only of man but of fate. Her pathos was pro- 



KING HENRY VIII. 563 

foundly true and in that element her performance 
ranked with the best which have been recorded. 

The loveliest embodiments of Queen Katharine that 
have been seen on the American Stage in our time 
were those of Helena Mbdjeska and Ellen Terry, — 
the one making actual a perfect ideal of a patient 
sufferer subjected to cruel wrong; the other express- 
ing, with afflicting simplicity, the grief of a heart- 
broken woman. Neither of those accomplished per- 
formers followed the Siddons tradition in all respects, 
and neither of them could vie with Charlotte Cush- 
man in passionate intensity and resolute will. Ellen 
Terry, in her assumption of Queen Kathanne, dis- 
criminated with unerring intuition between the grief 
which is noble and that which is merely forlorn, and 
the fortitude which is sublimely patient and that which 
is merely lachrymose or bitter. There was no 
deficiency of the imperial element: her Queen was 
felt to be a person born to queenly station: but the 
supreme beauty of the performance was its intrinsic 
loveliness of womanhood. In the Trial Scene, while 
her eyes shot forth no lightnings upon her enemy. 
Queen Katharine was made the victor over the great 
Cardinal, because shown to be the superior individual 
in nature and stronger in the armament of a just cause. 
Thus the actress enforced the principle that is con- 
veyed by the play, — that although in the strife of 



564 SHAKESPEARE ON THE STAGE 



the world it is the hard, selfish, cruel, material force 
which conquers at the moment, the ultimate triumph 
comes to integrity of character, honesty of purpose, 
nobility of mind, and purity of life. The wily 
ecclesiastic may prevail for a time, but he has built 
upon craft, and his craft is a sand that will crumble 
beneath his feet. The fickle, sensual, arbitrary mon- 
arch may divorce his true wife and take a younger 
and comelier mate, but his day of retribution is 
appointed and it will surely come. The Queen^ 
dethroned and exiled, may die of a broken heart, 
but she has lived nobly, and her name will be cher- 
ished by the love of mankind and her bright example 
will animate many a suffering soul to meet all trials 
with fortitude and endure with patience to the end. 



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